Spiral Out
by Annwyd
Summary: Things go wrong, and people struggle to cope, and over a decade later, someone tries to fix them.  [Nine out of thirteen chapters complete] CHAPTER NINE: Tsunade takes matters into her own hands, and Sakura and Sonmei meet someone in the darkness.
1. Prologue: The Spring Has Passed

**Author's Note: **This started out as a silly injoke. Then it turned into this. Hopefully, I'll be able to carry the story through to the end, but it's going to take some time.  


_five years before the present_  
Sonmei was seven when a band of rogue Sound-nin raided his village. He had grown up with war, had known it for as long as he had been alive, but this was the first time he'd been out in the streets and watching the attack when it happened. The closeness of the battle was a shock, but not exactly a deterrent to him.

Something splashed at his feet, and he stared at it for a puzzled moment. It was red, and darkening as it spread.

Blood, he realized. He jerked as something flew past him, then again as the window behind him fractured and fell to the ground in pieces.

And then he couldn't restrain himself any longer. He had his kunai with him, of course; all capable children over the age of six did, in these times. He'd been told to keep to himself in situations like this. He didn't care. He knew he was more capable than any ten of his so-called peers. What was the point of that if he couldn't use them?

He'd cut a visible swath into the charge of invaders before he caught sight of his mother's long hair at the edge of his vision. She'd been growing it out for as long as he could remember, and now it was a sweeping pink curtain wherever she went. He barely had the time to register her presence before she grabbed hold of him and pulled him out of the fray.

She was only bent over him for a moment, but it was enough. She'd missed just one Sound-nin when she came in after him, and that one was approaching her, too fast for her to stop him.

"Mom, over there!" But she wasn't moving fast enough, and the Sound-nin was coming at an unpredictable angle, lashing out with some kind of razor-sharp bow.

What happened next cut hard into Sonmei's memory and left its mark there perfectly. His vision changed. That had never happened before.

He saw without knowing how that the bow's edge itself, which his mother was already moving to dodge, wasn't the only point of attack, or even the main one. He could make out, somehow, that the bow was emitting dense waves of sound at strange angles. He wasn't sure what they could do--no, another split-second and he could tell that they were probably intended to scramble internal organs.

Every motion the Sound-nin made was laid bare to him, fed into his brain in almost dazzling detail. He didn't let it dazzle him. Instead, he leapt at the perfect angle to intercept his opponent--_his_ opponent now, because he had to protect his mother, and he was fiercely proud to know this. When the older ninja paused in surprise, Sonmei grabbed the back of the bow, twisted it around, and pushed it forward just so.

His victim stared at him for a moment, but Sonmei could tell it was already over even before the Sound-nin folded over and collapsed, blood running from the sides of his mouth.

"Sonmei," his mother said. He turned to look at her, and he could see chakra spinning in controlled spirals inside her. He paused, mesmerized. But there was something strange behind her.

The window that had broken just before he leapt into battle. One large shard of glass reflected his image, and there was something very strange about his eyes.

"Sonmei," she said again, more sharply this time. "Close your eyes."

Too disturbed to do anything else, he obeyed.

"Now open them."

And then his vision was normal again, and in the broken glass, his eyes were as dark as ever.

* * *

The Hokage visited their house that night, in between cleaning up the aftermath of the battle. Sonmei came home midway through the ensuing conversation. He immediately proceeded to flatten himself against a wall, murmur a genjutsu, and fade into the woodwork. 

His father was sprawled on the couch with his eyes closed and his arms folded behind his head, but Sonmei knew he wasn't asleep, even if at the moment, only his mother and Godaime were talking.

The Hokage looked very tired, but she always did, when he saw her. "So what now?"

"We find someone to train him," his mother said. "Someone who can do it discreetly."

Godaime made a face. "Not many people like that left, Sakura."

They were both silent for a long moment. In the end, it was his father who finally spoke. "We wait," he said without opening his eyes. "We make sure that his public teachers have no idea how to handle him and make him out to be an idiot, and we train him in private, and we wait."

"One problem," Sakura said. "I can't teach him unless you want me to blow my cover. And Ino's too busy with ANBU."

His father stared up at the ceiling and declined to comment.

"You know I can't do it," the Fifth said. "There's only so long I can hide that sort of thing, and then they'll start asking why the Hokage is wasting her time training her student's useless bastard."

"Pity?" his father suggested, without much hope in his voice.

"Please," she said.

He shrugged a little without bothering to put much effort into it.

"You know," Sakura said, "_you're_ supposed to be his father." That was met with a snort of disbelief. "You could always teach him Kagemane..."

"Kagemane dies with me," Shikamaru said quietly.

"Fine," the Hokage said, a little sharply. "Just great. I _really_ don't want to have to bring someone new into this. So again. What do we do now?"

"Well--" Sakura began. She paused, then said slowly, "There's one person who already has reason to suspect that I'm not just a resigned housewife."

Three pairs of eyes, two visible and one not, fixed on her.

"She forged my chakra sword," she said, "and she maintains it now. She knows enough to tell that it's more than decorative."

Silence settled on the room. After what might as well have been a year, Shikamaru slid his gaze back down to focus on the exact spot where Sonmei stood hidden against the wall. "Hey, Sonmei, how would you like to learn how to use weapons?"

Sonmei knew better than to try to pretend he hadn't been spotted. His father _knew_ these things. He dismissed the genjutsu and stood firmly and without shame to face the adults. "I already know how to use weapons," he said patiently. "Did you see what I did to the Sound-nin today?"

"Yeah, all nine of them," Shikamaru said. "Including the last, but the first eight you took out with your weapons and your bare hands." He rubbed at his face. "You have no idea how troublesome..." He trailed off, his eyes almost closing.

"That's gonna take a lot of work for us to explain, kiddo," Godaime said.

"Whatever," Sonmei said. He knew his parents and the Hokage wouldn't let him use his own talents, much less take credit for them when he did. He also knew he couldn't change that or even get a believable explanation for it out of them, and that only made him resent it more. "What it means is, I know my weapons, okay?"

"Not like your new sensei does, you don't," his mother said.

Sonmei blinked. "My--"

"You could have talked to her about it first," his father suggested wearily.

"Once she knows what's at stake," Sakura said calmly, "she has to agree."

"You're probably right," Shikamaru said, but he didn't sound any happier about it.

The Hokage rose from her seat. "Now that that's worked out," she said, "I have other things to do." Behind her back, Shikamaru made as if he were lifting something to his mouth repeatedly and gave his wife a questioning look. She nodded, her mouth twisted unhappily.

Sonmei held his breath as she passed him by. It was a silly habit, but he always had the vague feeling that she wrapped herself in illusions so fragile that the slightest puff of air could bring them tumbling down, with dreadful consequences. He knew this made no sense, that what illusions she had were surely quite durable, but that didn't stop him from feeling that way.

She stopped and turned to look at him. He was struck by the profound sadness in her eyes: the kind of patient, tempered grief that only built up over ages. It was the one clear flaw in her genjutsu. Otherwise, she looked younger than his parents, but though he'd never been able to confirm it directly with anyone else, her eyes told him all he needed to know about her true age. "...Hokage-sama," he said carefully.

She smiled at him, and he thought she probably meant it to be kind, but it was heartbreakingly sad. "I knew a kid who used a genjutsu like yours once," she said. "He wasn't as good as you, though, because I'd always catch him, and then he'd have bruises for days. I was just a kid then myself, of course."

"Where is he now?" Sonmei asked, although he thought he might already know the answer.

"Same place they all are, kiddo," she said. "Same place they all are. Underground or in ashes."

* * *

_three years before the present_  
When Sonmei decided to go to training early one morning, he wasn't really thinking about the consequences. He mostly just wanted to get away from the snide murmurs that followed him. They thought he couldn't hear, but he knew exactly what they said: the mutters about why does the Nara put up with him; about how much his mother has given up for his sake; about how he was so useless to his ninja parents, they had to fob him off on the poor sad weaponsmith in the hopes of getting him to learn _some_ trade. 

He knew this was what his parents wanted (and sometimes he wondered if even his mother was his real parent; he _knew_ his father wasn't), but that didn't make it any less frustrating. Sometimes it was hard to resist the urge to grab them and show them just how much better he was than they thought. He was better than _they_ were, and he knew it.

Simmering in these thoughts, he nearly walked into the forge without taking note of its contents. His instincts only kicked in at the last second, and he paused in the doorway.

Tenten was sitting on the bench, just finishing tucking half of her hair into one bun. As he watched, she started on the other side. It seemed almost wrong for him to see this, as if he'd caught sight of a weapon he was meant to carry into battle while it was still sizzling on the forge--only more personal than that.

He watched anyway, because he liked to see things.

Even in this, she wasted no movement. It was done in less than a minute.

"Sensei," he said. She looked up, only a little surprise showing in the set of her jaw, and none reaching her sad eyes. "Wouldn't it be easier to just braid your hair, or keep it in a ponytail, or even just cut it short?"

She paused for a moment before saying, "Utility isn't everything. Only most of everything. Sonmei, why are you here so early?"

He shrugged.

She gave him a hard stare. "I was going to visit the Hyuuga estate this morning. I still am. You can stay here and clean up until I get back."

He stared back. "What if I want to come along?"

She stood up, her mouth set into a thin line. "We don't always get what we want." But her expression softened. "Tell me. Have you ever been on the Hyuuga grounds before?"

"Of course not," he said. "I'm just the useless 'Nara' kid, too bad my parents have to put up with me, but at least after all they've been through they've finally found happiness with each other." He paused. "Why do people believe that, sensei? I _know_ they're not in love."

"Your mother is a _very_ good actress," Tenten said. "She always has been. Are you coming with me"

* * *

If rumor was to be believed (and Sonmei knew it wasn't always), the teenage ANBU member who let them in at the gate had once been in line for head of the Hyuuga clan, before her father died and her older sister took over. If rumor was to be believed, the current clan leader wasn't quite right in the head, hadn't been since her cousin died, and Hanabi was the one who did most of the actual work. 

Sonmei doubted it, personally. He was pretty sure Hanabi would have refused her appointment to ANBU if she had most of the work of managing the clan to deal with as well. But there _was_ something wrong with Hyuuga Hinata. Supposedly she hadn't left the Hyuuga grounds since returning from the mission where Tenten-sensei's teammates lost their lives. Since even his parents and the Hokage subscribed to this belief, Sonmei was pretty sure it was more than just a rumor.

He was prepared for the quiet purpose throughout most of the grounds, for the cool determination of what was left of the clan after the wars. But the head family's mansion was another story.

Sonmei wasn't prepared at all for the extent of the silence there, for the emptiness. It was nearly desolate. He wondered if, since the Hyuuga could not escape one sense, they attempted to rid themselves of all distractions in the others. He doubted he'd be able to ask.

"Stay here," Tenten instructed him. "You don't want to poke into places you're not meant to be, not in this house." But there was a certain resignation to her tone. She knew exactly how likely he was to follow that order.

He opened his mouth to ask why she wasn't taking him with her, but she was already striding away. That wasn't much of a loss, as far as he was concerned. He'd much rather be exploring on his own than following her.

Sonmei edged his way down a side hallway, gently rattling doors and opening them when he could. But there wasn't much to see. Maybe that was a Hyuuga thing--but he didn't know. He _did_ know that there that there had to be secrets here for him to find.

All the same, he had to go through three different corridors until he found one.

The room was unremarkable save for the distinctive split-blade shape of a chakra sword hanging on the back wall, but that was special enough. There were only five chakra swords in the village: three used by ANBU members, one used by his sensei, and one that hung on his mother's wall. Sonmei would have figured this one to be Hanabi's, but Tenten had mentioned to him once that the Hyuuga didn't use the _tamashii no ken_ technique. None of them _had_ chakra swords.

Besides, this was clearly an early design. By all rights it should have been reforged into a more efficient shape years ago.

"Excuse me," said a soft voice behind him.

Sonmei spun around. He hadn't bothered concealing himself with genjutsu during his exploration; he doubted his tricks would have much effect on the Byakuugan. But it was still embarrassing to be spotted so easily. The woman watching him curiously didn't even look like much of a ninja.

"A-are you Sakura-san's son?" she asked. She looked the same age as his mother, but her voice trembled and shivered like a young girl's.

"My name is Sonmei," he said. He never bothered with the family name when he wanted to be taken seriously.

"I thought so," she said. Then, very hesitantly, she said, "You know, I--I know what it's like, to be...less than what everyone expects of you. I just thought..." She trailed off, her hands clasped before her, fingers twitching against each other. "If there's anything I can do to help..."

This was what Sonmei hated the most about the lies around him. Pity was much worse than derision. "I don't think there is."

Her face went slightly pink. "I--I'm sorry," she said. "I just--your sensei is here too, isn't she?"

He paused and stared at her for a moment. Then he said, "Hinata-san?" He could tell by her expression that he was right. "I thought she'd be with you. Isn't that what she comes here for?"

"Not always," Hinata said. "Sometimes she spends time in the room where Neji-niisan stayed after he moved in here. I don't disturb her then."

Sonmei just shook his head, uninterested (although he filed the information away for later), and pointed at the chakra sword on the wall. "Whose is that?"

She went from pale pink to very red in seconds. "It was a friend's," she stammered. "H-he's gone now. I keep it safe."

"A friend? Who?"

Hinata stared down at her fingers as she twiddled them. "I--I think you should ask your parents about that," she mumbled. "I shouldn't say anything, really..."

Maybe if she had looked less sad, maybe if there had been more strength in her voice, he would have pressed her for more information. But he couldn't quite find it in him to make her suffer more.

But when he questioned his parents on the subject, the information they gave him was maddeningly useless.

_one year before the present_  
It is dark where he is these days.

The man in the darkness paces in widening circles, and he imagines that his footsteps leave deeper shadow where they go.

He thinks _(hopes)_ that perhaps there is still another man somewhere, one whose footsteps leave echoes of light when he walks in spirals.

He immolated that boy _(man)_ thirteen years ago, but there was no body, and he's sure the flames weren't hot enough to burn it to ash.

There must still be light somewhere.

Until it returns, he will keep the darkness going, because it is all he knows.

_But sometimes, part of him still wants to see the light._


	2. Part 1: When I Take the Path

There were days when Sonmei felt full to bursting with all the secrets and emotions inside him. Lately, there had been more of them. When he sat down and thought about it, he eventually decided that the problem was that people were still dying. 

"There's something I want to learn," he told his mother as he followed her through the streets one day. He was twelve, and he was confident that if he needed to, he could take on both his parents in combat, quite possibly at the same time.

Sometimes he wanted to. They were both hiding in their pretend retirement, fussing over the secrets they pinned on him and doing nothing about the real problem.

People were still dying from the occasional strategic attack by Sand, or from the sabotage from the same. Sonmei didn't really understand the politics between Leaf and Sand, himself; his father always found a way to shut him up before he could learn more.

People were still dying due to rogue Sound incursions. Most of the Sound had been wiped out, first by the original leader's death years and years ago, then by Kabuto's assassination six years later. But they could still cause damage, especially backed by the same people who supported Rain and Grass.

People were still dying because Rain and Grass were constantly gnawing away at the Leaf. Sonmei didn't know why, and this bothered him tremendously, because he was sure the adults knew something they were very deliberately keeping from him. Maybe it was something to do with the cloaked interlopers who shadowed the battles, aiding Leaf's enemies whenever they could. But Sonmei had never seen one of these people, so sometimes he wondered if they were just a desperate tale concocted by battle-weary ninja.

He didn't think so, though. Shinobi wouldn't do that.

But then, shinobi wouldn't tell him not to learn things, either, and that was what his mother was doing now.

"Save your brains for your lessons with Tenten," she said, patting him on the head and smiling down at him. She looked back up and started selecting fruit from the stand in front of her.

"I don't think Tenten-sensei knows about this," he persisted.

"You shouldn't worry about things your sensei can't teach you, Sonmei," Sakura chided him without even looking.

"The Hyuuga might know something, though," he said. "With those eyes of theirs." It was the most he'd spoken in public for some time, and several passersby had stopped to regard him curiously.

Sakura paused and pretended to concentrate very hard on an apple. "You shouldn't bother the Hyuuga."

"I want to learn to see like I did five years ago," he said.

The moment he finished speaking, he could sense something uneasy gathering in the bystanders. His mother gave it little time to brew, though. She set the apple down firmly and leaned down to hug him. He grimaced into her shoulder as she pulled him close. "Sonmei," she said gently, "I know you liked the healing jutsu I used to help you out back then, and I know you loved the medicine that went with it. But we didn't know at the time--it was doing terrible things to your head. You can't go around seeing stars and colors everywhere."

"You're a _liar_," he snarled. "And you always have been."

She tightened her hold on him and leaned in to whisper, "You don't want to see like that again. Not now. Not ever, if you're lucky. There's only one man left alive with those eyes; the last two died over a decade ago. One was a psychopath and the other a failure and a disgrace, and the one who's left can't find out you have his gifts...at least not until we're ready to handle him. Because..."

Her voice, though soft, had become more intense as she spoke. Her grip on him had slackened. With her mind somewhere in the past, she couldn't focus on her body in the now.

Sonmei bolted and ran before he could hear the rest of her explanation.

* * *

The door to their home did not slam as satisfactorily as Sonmei would have liked, but he was pretty sure he made his point. His father actually looked away from the ceiling to give him a puzzled stare. "Hm?" 

"Tell me what's going on with Sound," Sonmei said before he'd even finished catching his breath back.

His father lifted a brow.

"I _know_ something important is going on," he said. "Why won't you tell me what it is? I could _help_."

Shikamaru sighed. "Yeah. Okay. Come here."

Sonmei advanced a few steps, eyes slitting with distrust. "So?"

"You're not going to sit down, are you." His father rolled his eyes upwards. "First of all, why do you think I know what Sound is doing?"

"Maybe everyone else believes that retirement crap," Sonmei said, "but I know they're not letting you get away with it. You're Godaime-sama's secret strategist."

Shikamaru closed his eyes. "You inherited those damn brains of mine, huh?"

"Very funny."

"Not really." He opened his eyes again. "The thing is, Sound is almost finished off. They've been dying since they lost Kabuto, but we've gotten them down to one last encampment now..." His gaze slid lazily to the door.

And Sonmei knew he had about two seconds to run, or he'd be stuck here until his mother walked in that door.

"What encampment?" he began, lifting his hand as if to scratch his head in thought. Instead, he slapped his hand to the lightswitches and turned on every light in the room.

Five seconds later, Shikamaru knew exactly how he could get his shadow back and hold Sonmei until Sakura's return, but by that point, the boy was gone.

Children were troublesome. He was glad he had none of his own.

* * *

Sonmei was over a mile out from the village before he realized that he had probably made a mistake. He was another mile out before he realized someone was following him. 

He'd taken off in the directions that attacks these days tended to come from--what he assumed would lead him to the Sound encampment. He was thinking that maybe that had also been a mistake.

The ground flew by beneath him as he bounced from branch to branch. He was going to have to do this fast. He could handle that, though.

In mid-jump, Sonmei activated his invisibility genjutsu and swerved to the side. Instead of going for the next branch, he slapped a hand onto the tree trunk and, sticking himself there with chakra, carefully scuttled down to the ground. He was moving instantly, running silently through the woods as he tried to trace the path of his unknown follower and determine where they'd come from. If they were chasing him from Konoha, all he had to do was keep going in the other direction. If they were from elsewhere, on the other hand...

It was harder than he'd imagined. Whoever they were, they knew what they were doing; all he could tell was that they hadn't come from Konoha. There were barely any indications of their travel through the forest. Sonmei was nearly ready to give up when he almost stepped on the remains of a camp.

There were no ashes. Whoever it was had been smart and stealthy enough to avoid lighting a fire. But there were marks and scuffed earth and stamped-down ground, all of it consistent with someone having spent some time here--or at least, that fit with what he'd been taught, but he'd never had the chance to put his knowledge into action before.

It was more than a little exciting. Sonmei just wished Tenten-sensei were here to see him.

As for the identity of the camper, he was inclined to suspect his pursuer. At least they seemed to have stopped following him by now. That was a relief, but he'd still take the opportunity to investigate here.

He paused at the sight of something poking out from under a pile of dead leaves and sticks. Wary of traps, he carefully brushed the debris aside...only to find a simple book underneath. It was an old one, maybe older than he was, with gaudy and, he suspected, marginally obscene images on the front. He settled down to read it.

Sonmei heard the footfall right behind him, but by then it was too late to do anything useful. As he spun around to face the other ninja (because they were clearly another ninja), he wondered if the book had been a trap after all; if perhaps it had summoned his pursuer back to his side. Surely they couldn't have followed him all the way back here without him realizing at all.

The man Sonmei found himself facing quietly failed to launch any attack. He didn't even seem very fazed, but then, it was hard to tell: he was wearing a cloth mask over his lower face and dark glasses over his eyes. A long scar scissored through one of them. Sonmei forced himself to prepare for some kind of delayed attack instead of stand there staring.

The man held out a hand. Sonmei reacted immediately, whipping out a kunai and slicing at the exposed skin--

--or trying to. The stranger's other hand was suddenly around his wrist. Sonmei got the nasty impression that the man was smiling underneath his mask.

"The knife is yours," he chided, voice mild and very faintly amused. "The book is mine. Can we switch?" He was wearing a jounin's uniform, but it had taken Sonmei a while to recognize it, because all the insignias had been stripped off.

"You were following me," Sonmei said.

The masked man was definitely smiling now. "You were heading for some dangerous territory. I thought maybe you were lost and could use someone to take you back to Leaf."

"I don't need to go back to Leaf," Sonmei said sharply. "And I hope you're not going to try to take me back."

"I won't make you do anything you don't want to do," the stranger said.

Sonmei shoved the book at the man. "Fine. Then you won't stop me from leaving." He dropped his kunai back into its sheath. "But I'm not going back to Leaf, so don't bother trying to follow me there."

"Ah? Why would I want to follow you to Leaf?"

"I don't know," Sonmei snapped. "I mean, it can't be to find the way there, because that's pretty damn obvious. Maybe you thought you'd wait until we were close, then henge into me and sneak in..." He shrugged. "I don't claim to know the minds of Sound spies."

Soft laughter greeted his words. Sonmei snarled. Feeling his patience give way, he stopped resisting the urge to fight. He flicked shuriken out of is sleeve and down his palm, flinging them hard at the strange man. They sank into their target--

--and the chunk of wood shattered, spraying splinters everywhere. Sonmei stared.

A half-gloved hand settled lightly on his shoulder. "That's amazing technique. I wasn't sure at first, but...you really are his son."

"What?" Sonmei spun around. "You know my real father?" _Tell me,_ he almost said, but at about that point his brain caught up with his mouth, and he realized that the stranger was gone. He couldn't even see what direction he had taken off in.

Sonmei let out an irritated huff of breath and settled down to think. The man had said he'd been heading for dangerous territory--so he'd been on the right track. He was pretty sure he wasn't being followed anymore, so it was probably time to get back on course for the Sound encampment.

* * *

When he was younger, Sonmei had thought of Sound as the timeless enemy, looming just out of Leaf's reach in some ill-conceived combination of stone fortress and giant hornet's nest, darting out stinging attacks every so often. That had been when Kabuto was still alive and providing central authority. At the time such a man had seemed untouchable, but he knew now that such leaders were as vulnerable as any other human being. 

Which wasn't to say that destroying them was easy. The mission that had brought Kabuto down had claimed the lives of his sensei's teammates.

The current state of Sound reflected nothing of its past glory. It was a threadbare assortment of tents surrounded by rudimentary defenses. Sonmei found himself slipping through them before he even realized what he was doing. Once he did realize it, he paused a moment to consider the wisdom of his actions. Then he decided to go ahead with them anyway.

For all that their camp was nothing fancy, the Sound-nin noticed him the instant he stepped out of the concealing shadow of a tent. A compact, fierce-eyed man grabbed him by the collar and shook him sharply. "Leaf's here," he called out. Then he sneered. "And they sent a child."

"I'm _twelve_," Sonmei snapped back, only belatedly realizing that this was not the most mature comeback possible. Scattered laughter broke out around him. He suppressed an angry flush. "Leaf didn't send me. I ran away from the bastards. I can help you out."

"Child," said a long-haired woman holding a strangely-shaped flute in tattooed hands, "how could you help us out? And why would you want to? We're destroying your home." She smiled as she said this. "We've probably killed people you knew."

"Good," Sonmei spat. He forced himself not to show the way he was scanning the surrounding area for anything that could be used as a weapon. "I'm done with them."

"Eh," said the man, "if he changes his mind later, we can kill him then. Nidasu, make sure he's not planning anything nasty and see what you can get out of him." He let go of Sonmei and turned to go. The woman stepped up and lifted the coiled flute to her lips.

Sonmei blinked at Nidasu as she started to play. The music was very strange, and he felt his guards sliding down one by one. Why shouldn't he drop the lies and tell these people why he'd come? What was wrong with that?

Wait.

_It was the music._

He didn't give himself any more time to plan or to succumb to the music. Instead, he took a step forward, tentatively, awkwardly, and then pretended to stumble. When he fell, his hands wound up by a pair of tentpegs supporting one of the smaller tents. He grabbed them, but instead of pushing himself back to his feet, he channeled chakra into them, at once sharpening them and blasting the earth away from them. When he did return to his feet, he held them as weapons.

Around him, the demeanor of the Sound camp changed. A nearby man leapt to his feet and whistled out a piercing note of alarm. Nidasu stopped playing her flute and pulled a tiny switch on it; a blade sprang from the end. He didn't give her time to use it. Even as she moved toward him, he lunged, then drove one tentpeg deep into her abdomen. When he pulled it out, blood made his grip slippery, but he held on.

He left Nidasu where she fell and lifted his makeshift weapons to deflect a rain of kunai, then threw one of the tentpegs at the Sound-nin who'd thrown the kunai. In the same motion, he twitched several kunai of his own out of his sleeve and at his target. The man had time to register surprise before the flashing blades struck him.

Sonmei twisted around to drive the remaining tentpeg into his nearest opponent, but he caught the slender young woman a glancing blow to her thigh instead of anything more vital.

She drew back her lip in a snarl and lunged at him with a razor-edged fan. There were strange holes in its blades, and he could almost see the air rushing through them. No--he _could_ see the air rushing through them. He could see everything, down to the smallest detail.

His eyes had finally turned _on_ again.

Sonmei darted out an arm and caught the woman's fingers just so, bending them back against her tessen until he heard the bones snap. Then he grabbed the fan before she could reassert her grip and slashed her throat with it. She went down with her eyes still wide.

He took her tessen in one hand and drew a long knife with the other as he turned to face the club-wielding man approaching him.

Wait. Clubs? What sort of ninja used clubs?

Sonmei got his answer when, instead of striking with the weapons, the Sound-nin knocked them together just so, and the vibrations hummed through the air. He could see what the sound waves would do before they struck him, but he couldn't get out of the way. The invisible blow caught him, and he felt his bones go jelly-like. He glared up at the Sound-nin as he sank to his knees.

"Gave us a bit more trouble than we thought," the man with the clubs was saying, "but now--" He stopped. He looked harder at Sonmei's face. "Hey. He's got Sharingan."

Sonmei didn't see why it mattered now, but all the same, it was nice to know what these strange eyes of his were called, if that's what the man was referring to.

Before it could all end, though, a figure melted out of nothing behind the small cluster of Sound-nin that had gathered in front of Sonmei. It was the masked man he'd met on the way here, but his dark glasses were gone.

"He's not the only one," he said softly, his tone calm and faintly amused.

Before Sonmei could properly understand what was going on (although he could still see it down to the last detail), two of the Sound-nin were on the ground, choking up blood. The remaining one, a wild-haired woman wearing claws and bells, scrambled back and hissed as she took in the new arrival. "Who are you?"

The man smiled at her, his mismatched eyes squinting shut in mirth. "I wouldn't expect you to know anymore." He drew a strange, slender sword. With a jolt, Sonmei recognized it as the same kind as the one his mother kept on the wall as if in decoration, the same kind as the one he sometimes saw with Tenten, though she'd never used it around him.

"_Tamashii no ken,_" the masked man murmured, and with the faintest hum, pale blue light lanced down the blade's length. "This is a chakra sword," he said, lunging at the clawed woman. She barely dodged. "It's difficult to master, but--"

He lunged again, this time sending the blade right through her heart. "More effective than most people would imagine."

Sonmei caught sight of an older man rushing at the stranger from the side. He forced words out of his mouth. "Look out!"

The man with the chakra sword turned just in time to deflect a flurry of shuriken with his blade. The weapon moved with an unnatural grace, as if it were a colder, sharper extension of its wielder's arm.

"I know you," the older Sound-nin said. "Copy Ninja Kakashi."

"Yes," Kakashi said before lashing out again with the sword.

"But you're--" the other man said, cutting off when he died.

The effects of the clubs were wearing off. Sonmei shoved himself to his feet. "Whoever you are, 'Copy Ninja,'" he said, "I'm not letting you do this alone." He stripped a pair of blades off the most recently fallen enemy and straightened.

Kakashi gave him a swift, appraising look. "Don't strain yourself."

Sonmei gritted his teeth. "I won't."

And he threw himself into the fray.

* * *

Blood lay everywhere. Sonmei stared at it all, feeling suddenly very weary. The glitter of red sank out of his vision. 

"Let's go," Kakashi said sharply. He was staring intently at a spot at the edge of the clearing; to Sonmei, it looked no different than anywhere else.

"Are you sure...?"

Kakashi didn't answer. He just held out his chakra sword and watched while the glow faded back into cold steel, then sheathed it and vanished into the trees. Sonmei just barely made out his outline fading into a cluster of vines and short trees. He hesitated, then followed.

He was only a few steps into the shadows when he heard someone's approach in the devastated camp behind him. He turned and crouched behind a tree, not stopping to consider that perhaps he didn't need to see this.

A man in a dark cloak stood in what remained of the Sound encampment, regarding the dead ninja around him dispassionately. He nudged a body absently with one foot. Sonmei frowned absently at the cloak, trying to figure out what was bothering him about its design.

The man suddenly leaned down, took hold of the hair of a woman who'd gone down near the end of the battle with kunai in her belly, and yanked her head up. "Don't die yet," he said in a low, nearly emotionless voice: not a plea but a command, and a calm one at that. "Speak."

The kunoichi groaned and spat up blood. "Put that jutsu away and let me die..."

"No. Not until you've told me what happened here."

Her eyes focused, then widened. "My lord--I didn't realize it was you--"

He gave her an impatient shake, and Sonmei abruptly saw what was wrong with his cloak. It was patterned with dark red clouds, but their shapes were obscured by countless dark stains. He had a fair idea of what those stains might be, or at least what someone viewing the cloak was meant to think they were.

The woman spoke more freely now, her words nearly tripping over themselves to get out of her mouth. "There were only two of them and one was a boy, but even he was good, and the other one could have been a god or one of the sannin--"

"Idiot. There's only one of them left now." The man sneered (Sonmei could see it even from a distance, the nasty crook of his mouth). "If a boy and one of Leaf's elite bitches can take what's left of Sound down, you probably deserved it."

The sudden vitriol in his previously calm voice made Sonmei draw in a sharp breath of surprise. He froze as the man's gaze flickered in his direction, then relaxed slightly as it went back to the dying woman.

"But my lord," she said, "you promised the Akatsuki would help us until the end."

"This _is_ the end," he said, his voice cool once more.

"There's one more thing, lord," the kunoichi pressed on.

"I hope it's worthwhile."

"They had Sharingan."

Judging by the way the cloaked man paused, it _had_ been worthwhile. "Which one?"

"Both of them, my lord."

"Impossible," he said sharply, but something about his stance suggested that he was more eager than he let on.

"But true. The boy's weren't mastered, but he had them. The man didn't look like an Uchiha, but he had--"

"One." That dispassionate voice was distant now. "His left eye. I know."

"My lord?"

The man threw the woman's head back at the ground. Sonmei heard the snap of her neck breaking and saw her stop moving.

Then he saw dark eyes meet his own. The man smiled. It was an unsettling, out-of-place expression. "Come out of there, boy."

Sonmei considered disobeying, but decided to indulge his curiosity. He stepped out from the trees. "Who are you?"

"You'll find out eventually."

"That's not good enough," Sonmei said.

"It'll have to do for now," said the cloaked man. "Because it's not time for you to come to me yet."

Sonmei went over his inventory of weapons in his head. "If you don't tell me anything, I don't see why I should ever go to you, if that's what you want." Most of them weren't in position to be quickly drawn after the battle, but he had a kunai sheathed under his collar.

The man drew up that misplaced smile again. "You want to learn how to use those eyes of yours, don't you?"

Sonmei stared, and he began calculating how fast he'd need to get his kunai out.

"And don't think that the man you fought with could do it," the cloaked man said dismissively. "He's a terrible teacher. Apparently a better survivor than I thought, though."

"People have a habit of doing that," Sonmei said. "Surviving."

"You'd be surprised." This time, the accompanying expression was a smirk, not a smile, and it fit much more comfortably on that face. "Don't take out that kunai. Just tell me your name."

He hesitated, gritting his teeth and glaring, but he wasn't going to walk away from this without at least giving a name. "Sonmei. Who are you?"

"It's not time yet," the man chided. "Where did the other ninja go, Sonmei?"

Sonmei was pretty sure that he knew where Kakashi was hiding; he was also pretty sure that if he set this man after him, there would be bloodshed. So far he found both of these two older ninja quite irritating. Intellectually, he wasn't sure if he cared if they lived or died. And yet--his instinct was to protect Kakashi from whatever the cloaked man had in store.

He stared back at his questioner, letting himself seem enthralled by those dark eyes. "He went over the tree branches," he muttered. "Further north."

The man in the bloodstained cloak smiled once more, and then he was gone.

Sonmei stood motionless for several minutes, staring straight ahead, refusing to focus on any of the corpses around him. Finally, a tree rustled briefly, and Kakashi said, "He's gone now."

Sonmei turned to face him. The dark glasses had been replaced; the everpresent mask was still there. Not much of his actual face was visible. "Who are you really?"

"I'm your new sensei," Kakashi said. He paused, then added, "If you want."

"I don't know," Sonmei said slowly. "I heard something about you being a terrible teacher..."

Again that airy little smile behind the mask. "Better than none."

"I _have_ a sensei," Sonmei said. "She may not be the strongest ninja in Konoha and she may not know much in the way of legendary techniques, but she's _good_."

"You don't have to decide right now," Kakashi said pleasantly. "You've got at least until we get back to Konoha."

Sonmei eyed him warily.

"There's not much point in hiding now," Kakashi said. He started walking.

* * *

They spoke little on the way back, but Sonmei couldn't resist the urge to ask a question here and there. 

"Did you know that was the last of the Sound encampments?"

"I should hope so, since I was only this close to Konoha in the first place to spy on them."

"Why wouldn't you be close to Konoha otherwise?"

"A few reasons."

"Like?"

"Convenience," Kakashi said. "Self-preservation. Sanity."

And further on, as it was starting to get dark:

"Why are you coming back to Konoha now? How do you know they'll even take you back?"

"The Hokage and I worked it out before I left," and Kakashi would give no more information.

When the stars were out, Sonmei had one more thing to say.

"My mother said that there's only one other person alive with the...Sharingan? Yeah. And that I didn't want him finding out I had them too."

"No."

"She said the last two people with it died years back; that one was a psychopath and the other a failure and a disgrace."

Soft laughter from Kakashi. "Your mother was always very sharp. She's wrong about one thing, though; I'm not dead."

Sonmei decided not to ask whether Kakashi was the psychopath or the failure and disgrace.

They stopped to spend the night partway back. As he was preparing to sleep, Sonmei caught Kakashi giving him a strange, almost sentimental look. He stared back, frowning.

Kakashi almost smiled beneath his mask, and it was somehow more real than any of the actual smiles Sonmei had seen from him thus far. "You're twelve, aren't you?"

"Yeah..."

"Same age your parents were when I started teaching them," Kakashi said.

Sonmei opened his mouth, then shut it, unable to think of the proper questions to exploit this sudden opening.

Then it was gone. "Now go to sleep."

If he hadn't been so worn out from the chaotic day, Sonmei wouldn't have obeyed.

* * *

It was almost midday when they reached the edge of the village, and it wasn't until half an hour later that they got to Sonmei's house. Without ever actually saying so outright, Kakashi had insisted on taking all the circuitous routes that would keep them out of public view. 

"If you're so sure you'll be welcomed back..." Sonmei began, but he stopped when he saw that Kakashi wasn't paying the slightest bit of attention to his words.

There were shadows moving behind the drawn shades. "My mother's home, then," Sonmei explained. "My father doesn't move around so much."

"Your father...?"

"My mother's husband," he said darkly.

"Ah," Kakashi said. "Excuse me for just a moment..." He walked up to the windows, then ducked out of sight around the corner of the house. After a few moments, he reemerged. "Let's go see your mother, then."

Sonmei hesitated. "Should I go in first?"

Kakashi shrugged. "If you want to."

Sonmei straightened up, walked up the back steps, and pulled open the door. "I'm home," he said.

His mother immediately stopped pacing and turned around to take in his presence. "Finally," she breathed. "What a mess this all is--"

She stopped. She was looking over his shoulder at the man behind him.

"Sakura," Kakashi said.

There was a moment of stillness. Then, in movements so swift and graceful she might as well have been dancing, Sakura picked up a kitchen knife off the table and threw it at him just so.


	3. Part 2: The Color of the Flower

Puffs of smoke swirled out from where the knife hit Kakashi, and then he was gone as if he'd never been there. Instead, he faded into view behind Sakura and grasped her wrists. The dark glasses were gone; instead, a hitai-ate with the Leaf symbol on it tilted across his forehead and over his left eye.

"I thought you might try something like that," he said.

She twisted around and glared up at him. "For a dead man you're still fast, Kakashi."

He smiled down at her. "I'm very alive for a dead man, too." He gave her a thoughtful look. "You grew your hair out again. I didn't think..."

She did something too fast to be visible, and then she was out of his grip. "You didn't think about _anyone_ in Leaf for the past twelve years, apparently. Or you might have tried doing something to help."

Kakashi blinked. It was the first time Sonmei had seen him look genuinely surprised. "Sakura, I should--"

"But maybe you shouldn't have," she continued. "Maybe you'd have messed that up as badly as you did everything before." He opened his mouth to speak again, but she whirled on him, her eyes bright with anger and something less recognizable. "_Don't say anything!_"

Her steps rang out as she strode from the room.

"My wife certainly has a temper on her," Shikamaru drawled from another entrance. "You'd know that, right, Kakashi?"

Kakashi regarded Shikamaru levelly. "Your wife."

"It's a little complicated," Shikamaru said, "and I'm not going to get into--"

"No," Kakashi said, and then he smiled. "I think I understand."

"I'm not going to expect _you_ to believe that there was love involved, but..." He paused, looking at Kakashi oddly for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess you would understand. Not many people still alive know her better than you do. But don't assume you know that much. I've been married to her for almost twelve years, and sometimes I think I barely know her." He turned and started to walk away.

"Why did you do it?" Kakashi asked quietly.

Shikamaru paused.

"I know why she married you," Kakashi said. "You're the only one who can handle all the scheming and planning the situation requires. I don't know why you agreed."

Shikamaru didn't reply for a long moment. Sonmei held his breath; he had a sense of being invisible. His father was about to give up a great secret, and he had the chance to hear it.

"It's the closest thing I could get to a normal life," Shikamaru said. "That's always been my dream."

Kakashi looked after him, his expression unreadable, for a long moment. "Didn't you find something better than a normal life once?"

"...she's dead now."

Shikamaru did not look back before walking away.

* * *

There was a woman in a jounin's outfit standing at the door. Between the mask she wore (much like Kakashi's, but colored an orangey-pink to offset her blue eyes, and patterned tastefully with faint flower shapes) and her hitai-ate, very little of her face was visible. Old scars streaked the visible skin like spattered paint, but wisps of her blond hair had been artfully styled to draw attention away from that part of her face. Somehow, her jounin clothes had been arranged so as to best accentuate the curves of her fit figure, and even their colors had been tweaked to have a more attractive flair to them. Her vest was even patterned to match her mask.

Shikamaru brushed past her on his way out. She glanced at him, concern flickering through her eyes, and reached for his shoulder. He let her touch him, but looked down. "Later," he muttered. Then he shrugged off her hand and walked out.

Kakashi stopped as he caught sight of the woman. Sonmei, at his side, saw his eye widen just a little, so that he looked slightly less likely to fall asleep at any moment. "Ah," he said. "Excuse me, why are you here?"

"Ino-san," Sonmei said, "this man is going to be helping Tenten-sensei teach me." Kakashi made a tiny, barely audible noise of surprise, and Sonmei suppressed a satisfied smile. He had no intention of letting this strange ninja displace Tenten.

Ino stared for a moment longer. Then she said, "I'm Sakura's best friend and Shikamaru's surviving teammate. You're her former sensei, who has been dead for the past thirteen years. I think I'm the one who should be asking you that."

Kakashi gave a soft chuckle, his visible eye squinting shut. "Sorry," he said off-handedly.

"So long as that's clear," Ino said. "I need to talk to Sakura."

"Why?" Sonmei asked.

She gave him a brief, startled look, not used to him questioning anybody. But then, he wasn't used to getting answers. This time, though, she obliged him. "The Hokage needs to speak with her. Sand has sent word that they're ready for peace talks."

"I don't remember teaching her to be a diplomat," Kakashi said mildly.

"From what she says, you didn't teach her much of anything."

He turned his head away slightly. "How harsh." But he was smiling. "Why don't you go talk to Sakura now? She's further inside. I'm sure she can see the Hokage when I'm done."

Kakashi walked right past Ino without giving her time to respond. After a minute, once Ino had gone in search of Sakura, Sonmei put on his invisibility genjutsu and followed Kakashi.

* * *

He'd had to tweak the genjutsu over the years. The problem was that eventually, people figured it out. Not most people--they assumed such a jutsu was beyond his grasp--but the ones that knew better. His mother and father. His sensei. Ino. The Hokage. The ones that mattered. He was clever, but eventually, they always figured him out.

Most kids would have given it up by this point, but Sonmei sometimes felt like invisible was his natural state. Everyone planned about him, but never _with_ him. The village ignored him except for the occasional whispers and snickers. It was only fair he take advantage of this.

On the worst days, he felt like parts of himself were invisible even to him. But he had the feeling that if he learned enough, it would appear before his eyes. Nobody was willing to tell him these things if he asked, so he had to go invisible to find out. It wasn't like he was really tricking them--he was just returning to his natural state.

Still, he didn't actually go inside the Hokage's office. She was too good at spotting him. Instead, he crouched at the bottom of the door once Kakashi had gone inside, his ear to the space between the door and the floor.

"You're back," the Hokage said. There was no shock or even surprise in her voice.

"Sorry I was late," Kakashi said. For some reason, there was a certain deadpan amusement in his voice.

The Fifth made a small "hmph" noise. "Nobody _else_ gets lost on the path of life like you do, Kakashi. It can't be _that_ bad."

There was a silence in which Sonmei imagined Kakashi smiling in that cryptic way of his.

Then the noise of papers being shuffled reached him. "So," the Hokage said, "Thirteen years." Something liquid splashed into a glass or bowl. "Sake?"

"No thanks."

"Something stronger, then?"

"I don't usually drink in company."

"Pity," Godaime said, a sage familiarity with the topic in her voice. "Drinking alone is never a good idea."

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I do it," Kakashi said.

She gave a resigned little sigh. "I hope you have good news for me if you've bothered coming back now."

"Sound is gone," Kakashi said.

"Nice work."

"But it doesn't seem like the Akatsuki needs them any longer."

"There was an Akatsuki member there?"

Kakashi paused. Then he said, "My former student."

Sonmei pressed himself more tightly against the door.

"Sasuke was there. And you didn't do anything?" The Hokage's voice was sharp, although not yet angry.

Kakashi exhaled slowly. "Tsunade," he said (it was the first time Sonmei had ever heard anyone address the Fifth without any honorific), "he is not my student anymore. He's been studying forbidden jutsu for at least the past fifteen years. You know the chunk of Orochimaru's power he stole when he reversed the immortality jutsu? That may have weakened Orochimaru enough for us to take him out--"

"At cost," the Hokage said quietly.

Kakashi paused for a moment, then continued, "But Sasuke still has that power _and_ a number of new tricks. I would have died there. Maybe the boy, too."

Sonmei gritted his teeth. He was always _the boy_.

"Although--" Kakashi stopped. Then he said, "He's not going to kill Sonmei yet."

"I hope you're right about that," Tsunade said. "He's killed a lot of other people, even if it wasn't always direct."

"Thirteen years," Kakashi said, and he sounded very tired. "For thirteen years, you, me, and Gai have been all that's left."

Nobody had ever told Sonmei about the jounin massacre. What he knew of it he'd amassed on his own power. Much to his frustration, it wasn't all that much. He knew that nearly all the elite jounins and above had been killed that night. Tsunade and one other (that must be Gai) had survived. Apparently (and here Sonmei adjusted his ideas of the event a bit) Kakashi had survived as well.

There was a strained silence from the Hokage's office, and then the sound of her pouring herself another drink. Then another.

"Should I have brought that up?" Kakashi asked.

The Fifth sighed. "Rock Lee died on the same mission as Hyuuga Neji. A month later, Gai didn't come back from a mission of his own."

One beat. Then, "But they never found a body?"

"_No_, Kakashi." Her tone was sharp now. "Don't start with that. There was a body. It was in pieces."

The silence that followed lasted a lot longer. Sonmei leaned on the door just a little, as if he could find a way to _hear_ Kakashi's expression.

"Ah," Kakashi finally said, his voice as bland as ever, "I'm not sure we should be discussing these matters with the Uchiha boy listening."

Sonmei glanced to his side automatically, searching for another eavesdropper. By the time he'd registered that there was nobody else around, he'd already figured out that Kakashi was referring to him. He took a split-second to consider his options, and then he stood up, dropped his genjutsu, and opened the door.

Kakashi, sitting before the Hokage's desk, was as expressionless as ever. Sonmei was getting the feeling that this was the norm for him.

"Hello, Hokage-sama, Kakashi-san," Sonmei said.

"You've got to learn not to do that, kiddo," the Fifth said. "Or to do it better."

"I never stop trying, Tsunade-sama," he said solemnly.

Something about his words sent an instant of pain flickering through her eyes, but then it was gone, and she just arched a brow at him. "You'll get plenty of opportunity to _try_ when your mom leaves for the peace talks with Sand later this week. You get to make sure your father doesn't permanently merge with the couch."

It was unbelievably infuriating how they'd just glossed over that name _Uchiha_. Sonmei opened his mouth to demand a return to the subject.

"Ah," Kakashi said.

The Hokage looked at him sharply. "You're not seriously saying you and the kid should go with the delegation."

"I don't think we have any choice," Kakashi said. "The Akatsuki has something planned, and I'd be more useful there than here."

"You _would_ be useful here," Tsunade said quietly. Sonmei gave her a puzzled look, but she did not elaborate on the subject.

Kakashi tipped his head slightly to one side, smiling a little ruefully. "You'll pull through."

"And the boy?"

Sonmei could have screamed, but he had the feeling that throwing a fit would not help matters right now.

"The boy is my student," Kakashi said calmly, as if that excused everything.

Tsunade looked at him for a long moment, and then, as if that _did_ excuse everything, she said, "You know him better than I do. If you think--"

Kakashi merely tipped his head slightly and smiled inscrutably, and Tsunade went quiet. Sonmei wanted to ask how in the world Kakashi could know him better than Tsunade did--not that _either_ of them knew him well, because nobody did. Instead of saying as much, though, he just said, "I'm curious..."

"That's normal for a boy your age," Tsunade said.

"I'm curious," he said, "about whether I get any say in this."

There was a beat of silence. Then Kakashi smiled far too brightly and said, "What makes you think you don't?"

Sonmei opened his mouth, then closed it.

"You have the very important choice," Kakashi continued, "of staying home, safe, and ignorant, or coming to Sand and beyond and learning everything that's always been kept from you."

Sonmei stared at him.

"I wouldn't dream of making that choice for you," Kakashi said.

Sonmei wondered if he'd turn into an asshole when he grew up like all the adults he knew. He thought of asking if it was a prerequisite, but then the door flew open.

It really flew. He was surprised it didn't blow right off the hinges. That happened sometimes in his home--often enough that he recognized who had just come into the Hokage's office without turning around to check.

"You always told me to knock first, Mother," he said reproachfully.

"Don't talk back to me," Sakura said, and before Sonmei could reply _Actually I talked first,_ she'd moved on to Kakashi.

She grabbed the chair out from under him and, pulling him up by his collar, threw him into the wall, where she held him by a palm against his chest. "Putting aside the fact that you vanished for over twelve years, letting everyone think you were dead so that you could run away instead of defending Konoha--" She took a swift, rough breath. "You're wasting Tsunade-sama's time when she needs to be meeting with me."

"How inconsiderate of me," Kakashi said softly.

"Don't get me started on the other things," she said. "Like surviving while better ninja and better people died."

"Sakura," Tsunade said, warning in her tone.

She was silent and still for a moment. Then she pulled her hand back and turned away. Kakashi slid to the floor. "When do I leave, Tsunade-sama?"

"The day after tomorrow." Tsunade pulled a couple scattered papers back into place in front of her and looked down at them. "Your official bodyguard is ANBU captain Hyuuga Hanabi."

"'Official' bodyguard," Sakura repeated warily.

Tsunade sighed, propping her elbow up on the desk and her chin in her hand. "Your unofficial bodyguard is ex-jounin Hatake Kakashi."

"_What?_" That was Sakura.

"Ex-jounin?" That was Kakashi.

Tsunade took up the latter question. "You _left_, Kakashi. You had to, but you still left." She paused. "Look, we're only technically allowed to send one jounin-or-ANBU bodyguard to the talks. They expect us to try to circumvent this rule, but we have to at least pretend to follow it, all right?"

"I see," Kakashi said mildly, but he looked oddly unhappy about it.

"Isn't this a little too important to let someone like him screw it up?" Sakura asked. There was that _edge_ in her voice, the one she only got on certain subjects. Sonmei heard it sometimes when she talked about him, his past and his future--and the much rarer occasions when she talked about _her_ past and the people that had populated it.

Tsunade rubbed at the bridge of her nose. "Sakura, if you don't shut up, I'm going to rip his page out of the bingo book and tattoo the contents on your hands. I don't care what you think he did to you. He's the best shinobi still alive in the Five Countries. Period."

Sonmei gave his new sensei a startled look. Sakura gritted her teeth. Kakashi himself merely said, "Aside from you and my students."

The Hokage eyed him thoughtfully, but did not contradict him. After a moment, she looked down and seemed to see Sonmei for the first time in several minutes. "Get out of here, kiddo. The adults have some talking to do. Go pack or something."

Sonmei paused. He waited for his mother to say something, to protest that he should stay home. Instead, she glanced down at him and said, "Do what Godaime-sama says."

So he did, but at least he scowled and sulked and muttered to himself while doing it.

* * *

After his chaotic day, sleep crept up on him with little warning. Sonmei dozed off in an old armchair with his bags (neat and compact as befits a ninja going on a mission) at his feet. His dreams were fitful and strange.

Sometime late at night, he found himself skating along the edge of wakefulness when a very soft tearing noise brought him all the way there. He cracked one eye just a tiny bit open.

The light was golden and hazy through his eyelashes, but he could make out his mother's form. She had a kunai in one hand, and she held it up near the back of her neck. He would have been alarmed if he wasn't half-convinced that this was a dream.

She was missing something.

Sonmei didn't realize what it was until he looked down around her feet. There was the form of the chakra sword she normally kept consigned to the wall--but it was nearly buried in pink strands. Now that he focused, he could see more of the strange threads still floating down through the air, like petals in a stiff spring breeze.

Even after the events of the past two days, the sleep-fogged sight of his mother's hair falling into a pink snowdrift at her feet was still the strangest thing Sonmei had seen in a very long time. 


	4. Interlude: In This Dire Distress

The lord of what is left of the Akatsuki has a penchant for drama--some might even say melodrama.

He could have constructed his hideout somewhere inconspicuous above ground, but instead he chose to build it in a network of passages and caverns underground. He could have wired up electrical lighting, but instead he chose to light perpetually-burning fires within cracks in the walls.

It is a full underground village, where the light is always red and flickering. Neither shadows nor light ever solidify here. It is a half-world.

It is a full underground village, peopled by those who have lost any other homes they might once have had. He finds them when they have broken all the ties that once defined them, and he offers them something new to be. He teaches them how to break apart the world around them.

It is a full underground village, populated only by his soldiers. They have no families. They aren't allowed families. He does this for their own good, he says, because he of all people knows that friends and family cause nothing but pain.

It is a full underground village, or he thinks it is, because he has no idea what really makes a village. He calls it Mugenjigoku: the lowest hell.

* * *

The steps down to the very bottom of Mugenjigoku are not as broken and jagged as Sasuke wishes they could be. He accepts that, though. Even he has to acknowledge that some matters are too important to be inflated with melodrama. 

(Once, he didn't feel the need for so much pretension. Once, he knew that there were many things more important than melodrama. Everything is kind of faded now. Sometimes he feels like he's reaching for the world, trying to bring it back to him. Then he forces himself to stop. The world is his enemy now, he reminds himself.)

He used to make this visit only once a month. Then he moved up to once every two weeks. Now he walks down the stairs every two days. He thinks he might have to make it a daily event soon.

Sasuke reaches the bottom of the stairs. The only thing there is a stone door with a heavy metal plate in the center. He slides up the plate to reveal a sturdy grille.

Something rustles and rasps behind the door. Peering through the steel mesh of the grille, Sasuke can't make out a definite form, only shadows like sheafs of black paper being shuffled around. He leans a little closer, until his forehead rests against the cool stone of the door.

"How much longer?" he asks.

Even if someone else were down here with him, Sasuke would be the only one to hear the response from behind the door.

_Not long._

_You should let me out._

"Not yet." He sits back, and after a moment he stands up again. He's glad he doesn't bring others down with him to the door. They might see that it scares him more than it should. He shouldn't be frightened of anything anymore. Down here in the darkness, he shouldn't see his dead brother standing before him again whenever he closes his eyes.

Sasuke slides the plate back down over the grille. He is about to turn and start back up the stairs when he hears it: a loud scratching sound.

The door trembles slightly. Sasuke can imagine all too clearly the _something_ raking sharp points (claws? Or weapons?) down its other side.

He has to suppress the urge to flee at a run. He almost doesn't succeed.

* * *

Author's Notes  
Normally I avoid lengthy notes on my own writing, so I'm going to get this one out of the way early on in the story. 

First, there is a reason this is not as long as the previous chapters, and that's because it's an interlude. The next chapter will be of normal length.

Second, the structure of the story (as well as the actual content) is already planned out. In all, there will be a prologue, three interludes, and an epilogue surrounding eight main chapters.

Third, the chapters now have names, because the lack of them was bothering me. The names come from the first and second lines of various poems in the thirteenth-century anthology Ogura Hyakunin Isshu. Why are they named like this? Take your pick:  
a) I like pretty words and I like novel ways of labeling things, including chapters. Ogura Hyakunin Isshu provides me with a large, well-organized source of pretty words from which to pick labels.  
b) I'm a pretentious ass.


	5. Part 3: In a Moment I Will Come

Asleep in the near-vacant estate with its empty halls and useless walls, she dreams of someone familiar pacing the confines of a broken building, clogged with dust and ghosts.

"It's falling down, you know," he says. "I probably should have done more to keep it up, huh? I tried, though. You can't say I didn't try!" He sounds more angry than defensive.

_I know you tried,_ she starts to say, but she is mute, which is funny because it's usually his presence that gives her the strength to speak up loud and clear. _You never stop trying, _she tries to say, but he's getting distant.

Then, like he said, it falls down. She wakes up.

This is the third night in a row she's had a dream like this--they're always this short, all too short, they make his absence all the more painful when she wakes--but it's the first time she's gotten up in her sleep.

She reorients herself to her new surroundings, then studies the wall before her, and what hangs upon it.

* * *

The chakra sword's design was one of the least practical Sonmei had ever seen. He'd seen a few strange weapons in his short life, too. His sensei, for all her cool efficiency in battle, had a taste for pretty absurdities sometimes. Her walls were decorated with weapons: most of them elegant and workable, but others, like the shuriken shaped like flowers, quite unfeasible for battle.

He'd asked her about that once, after sparring with her. She'd wiped the sweat from her forehead and said, "Weapons are made for killing. But they're also art. No good artist can pour her soul into her work and, when it's done, see only an implement of destruction. Otherwise, she's not a craftsman anymore--only a killer."

He'd waited politely for a moment to be sure that she was done speaking, then said, "But sensei, really. Shaped like _flowers_?"

At that, she'd laughed. "They _are_ funny, aren't they?"

But she'd never called her chakra sword, or any others, _funny_. The one time he'd asked her about its ungainly design, she'd changed the subject. He'd never actually seen one in use until he and Kakashi (mostly Kakashi, he reminded himself) took down the Sound encampment.

Sonmei sat on the floor and studied his mother's chakra sword. It was the same length as a katana, and it had a similar hilt, but that was where the similarities ended. The blade was split down the middle, making a gap about half an inch wide, and the edges were not only sharp, but jagged, toothy. There were characters carved into each prong of the blade: one set read _tamashii no ken_, the name of the jutsu that activated the sword, and the other _Haruno Sakura_. He'd glimpsed similar markings on his sensei's sword, with her name there in place of his mother's. Kakashi's was an older model and therefore different--a little less refined, a little plainer--but the basic design was the same. It always was.

When the wielder performed _tamashii no ken_, a strange glow shot out from the hilt and enveloped the entire blade, forming a more normal sword-shape around the weird prongs. It hummed and crackled faintly.

Sonmei left his house early in the morning, before anyone else was awake, and went to his sensei's forge. He was not surprised to see her there--she'd always been an early riser.

"You're up early," she said, drawing a kunai across the grindstone. "Good, because you've been missing lessons."

He sat down on a bench and watched her fo a moment, trying to figure out if she really didn't know where he'd been the past couple days. Finally, he said, "Sensei, make me a chakra sword."

Tenten paused and started to set the kunai down. Instead of doing that, though, she twisted about and flung it in Sonmei's direction. He dodged back easily, snapping one hand up to grab the knife by the handle, then straightened up to wait for a more informative response.

"Did you enjoy your adventure, Sonmei?" she asked.

"It was enlightening, sensei," he said.

"I began work on your chakra sword," she said calmly, "as soon as I heard that Kakashi had come back to train you."

He blinked and tried to think of what to say.

"It'll be done by tomorrow."

He tried again. "Sensei?"

She looked at him in that quiet way she had, gentle and well-mannered on the outside but severe below the surface. There was some sort of rebuke in her gaze, but he couldn't figure out the details.

"When will you be teaching me the jutsu for it?" he asked.

Tenten turned so that he could barely see her face, picked up another kunai, and put this one to the grindstone as well. "Your mother invented _tamashii no ken_. Ask her."

"--she did?" An instant too late, Sonmei realized that he was being shunted into a topic change. He frowned, but it was too late. She was already talking.

"You should be able to catch her getting up if you go now, Sonmei," she said. And then she turned her back to him completely.

He considered saying that he was sorry, but he wasn't sure what he'd be apologizing for. Besides, she didn't seem angry. Sad, maybe? But then, beneath her calm patience, Tenten-sensei was always sad.

He turned and walked out, forcing himself to look straight ahead.

* * *

Sonmei was not far from his home when he realized that someone else was heading in the same direction.

She was not far ahead of him; by all rights she should have noticed he was there. He wasn't trying to be any more stealthy than usual. But then, maybe she wasn't a ninja at all. She wore no uniform, only a kimono--and he wasn't even sure if it was meant for wearing outside the house. The only problem was that a hitai-ate was knotted around her neck, and a sword was sheathed at her waist.

She was utterly out of place in these streets and eerily compelling. He fell into the shadows as he followed her. She walked without looking behind her, so all he could see was her long black hair against the white of her robe.

The woman stopped at the walkway to Sonmei's house. Inside, figures were already moving; he recognized Kakashi's silhouette. It was hard not to. Sonmei wasn't sure whether he'd been there all night or had arrived while he was gone.

The stranger hesitated, then took a step forward. Beneath the folds of her kimono, her foot trembled visibly for an instant. Then it was obscured once more.

So that was why she hadn't noticed him. It was taking all her strength just to keep walking. But her hand did not tremble as she raised it and knocked on the door. Sonmei slid behind a tree and willed himself to fade in with it as he watched and waited.

After a moment, Kakashi opened the door. His gaze traveled to the woman's face, and he gave her a bemused look. "I'm pretty sure the Hyuuga from ANBU isn't expected until tomorrow..."

"Ah-ah," the woman said, swallowing hard. "...Kakashi-san, I--am not the ANBU bodyguard. I need to talk to Sakura-san, please..."

"She's been busy lately," Kakashi said, his blank expression unchanging.

"It's important," she said. "I..." She stopped, her chin sinking close to her chest as her words ran out. Then she lifted her head once more and said firmly, "I'll show you something." She hesitated for just a moment, then lifted the sword from her sheath.

It was a chakra sword, and an older model of one. She turned it so that the inscriptions faced Kakashi, and before Sonmei could properly understand what either of them were doing, Kakashi had a brutal grip on her wrist.

"Where did you get my student's chakra sword?" he hissed. The amount of emotion in his voice astonished Sonmei.

"I--I--" The woman trembled in his grip.

"Let go of her, Kakashi-san." Sonmei hadn't quite realized that he'd stepped out of hiding and onto the walkway, but it was a little too late to be thinking about that.

Kakashi regarded him levelly, distant amusement in his gaze. "Not until she answers my question."

The woman lifted her chin very slightly. "Sakura-san gave it to me."

After a moment's silence, Kakashi released her wrist. She drew her arm up to her chest, still shaking slightly, and then swiftly resheathed the sword. Sonmei suppressed a twitch of irritation; he'd been hoping to get a look at the name inscribed on the blade. But the thought fell out of his mind in the next instant, when she turned around.

She was distantly familiar, as if he'd seen her once before, but that wasn't what transfixed him. What did it was that she was _beautiful_. There was an old, aching fear in the tiny lines forming around her silvered eyes and a flush of determination on her cheeks. "Thank you," she said.

"You're--don't--it's nothing, really," Sonmei said. "...Hinata-sama?"

She nodded, then turned and walked past Kakashi into the house. Sonmei ran after her, only to find himself stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"Let them talk alone," Kakashi said.

Sonmei stood there and glared down at the floor. "What was the name on the sword, Kakashi-san?"

There was no response. After a while, something occurred to Sonmei that made him even more annoyed. "_You_ can hear them talking, can't you?"

"What makes you say that?" Kakashi's tone gave away nothing.

"I think you've got better senses than most people."

"You're quick," Kakashi said quietly.

"I am my mother's son, after all. If not my father's." Without skipping a beat, Sonmei added, "What are they saying?"

There was a swift burst of soft laughter from beneath the mask. "You're not going to catch me off guard."

Sonmei sulked.

* * *

"Sakura-san...you cut your hair. I'd heard you were keeping it long."

"Last night. And you grew yours out."

"Please let me come with you to Sand, Sakura-san."

"Does this have anything to do with the sword?"

"...I think so."

* * *

Sakura walked into the front hall several minutes later, Hinata hovering behind her. "Shut the door," Sakura said, still not looking at Kakashi.

He pushed Sonmei further inside and pulled the front door shut, then regarded Sakura expressionlessly.

"The Hyuuga have decided that their clan head will come with us," she said, "to make sure that Sand understands the importance of these talks."

"That's a stupid excuse," Sonmei said.

Sakura sighed. "Don't contradict your mother, Sonmei."

"It is, though," he said. "Sand knows these talks are important to us, and sending another Hyuuga when the ANBU bodyguard already is one makes no sense. _Especially_ the clan head."

Hinata looked down at the ground.

"I'm sure she has a good reason to go," Sonmei added quickly. "That's just a bad excuse."

Sakura stared at him. "Care to come up with a better one?"

"Not really," he said. "It's not my job."

Kakashi stirred before Sakura could respond again. "Sonmei," he said, "let's go see about having a chakra sword forged for you."

"I saw Tenten-sensei about that earlier this morning," he said.

Kakashi blinked. "Then let's start teaching you basic swordsmanship."

"You think Tenten-sensei hasn't already?"

For a moment, there was silence. Then Kakashi said, very quietly, "Let me teach you more about your eyes."

"...all right," Sonmei said.

* * *

It was like laying a finger on a part of his brain, pressing down, and finding a button there beneath the grey matter. Then the world went red.

It was more than just seeing movement in greater detail. It was seeing things stroked around the edges in blood. It was a sharp and deadly world.

Sonmei was not entirely displeased with it.

* * *

When Kakashi dropped him off at home and then vanished--literally vanished in a puff of smoke--Sonmei found that Sakura and Hinata were gone. His father, sprawled out on the couch and staring up at the ceiling, was the only one left.

"Any new cracks?" Sonmei asked.

His father grunted.

"Hinata-sama was here earlier," Sonmei said. When there was no response, he continued, "I thought she didn't leave her estate."

"She didn't," Shikamaru said.

"But--"

"Apparently she does now."

Sonmei sat down in an armchair and thought about this. Finally, he said, "She's very beautiful."

Shikamaru's gaze slid slowly away from the ceiling and settled on Sonmei. After a while, he said, "Has anyone explained sex to you?"

"Tenten-sensei told me when I was nine," Sonmei said.

His father made a noise like choking.

"She used a stick," Sonmei said, "and the hole in the center of a shuriken."

"You're making that up," Shikamaru said.

Sonmei looked back at him evenly.

"Anyway," he said, "it's not like that."

Shikamaru made a face of disbelief.

"She's just very beautiful," Sonmei said.

His father considered this for a moment. "Ino is a very pretty woman," he said eventually. "And she's always taken great care with her looks. She used to be--maybe the prettiest girl in the village."

"Not like that, either," Sonmei said. He paused. "Did you think about her that way when you went on missions with her?"

Shikamaru shook his head slightly. "I grew up with her. It's...she was like a sister."

"Was?"

Shikamaru said nothing.

"It's different now, isn't it?" Sonmei asked.

There was no reply for a moment. Then Shikamaru said, "Your mother is a good-looking woman, if that's what you mean. She has...character."

"I suppose," Sonmei said slowly. "I suppose that's it. Did you ever find someone beautiful?"

His father made a noncommittal noise. Then he said, very softly, "You never saw the last Kazekage."

Sonmei stared down at his lap and said nothing. He had never heard his father use that tone before, and he had a feeling the former Kazekage's beauty, or how his father saw it, was nothing like Hinata's.

Shikamaru stretched, but did not get up. "Love warps people's vision, anyway."

"I'm not in love with her," Sonmei said. "That's silly."

"Of course not," his father agreed. "You have a crush on her."

Sonmei felt his face getting hot. "I do not." A beat. "What's the difference, anyway?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Ask your mother."

"Not a chance," Sonmei said. Then, "What makes you think she'd know?"

His father was quiet for a while. Then he said, "Years ago, before everything went bad, Ino came to training one day after visiting your mother. And she said, 'I can't believe what an idiot I've been.' Then she said--" He paused, then admitted, "Well, then I said, 'I can,' and she hit me. But _then_ she said, 'Sakura doesn't have a crush on that jerk. She's really in love with him.' I never asked her how she figured it out, or what Sakura told her. I assumed it was something you just knew."

"...my mother was in love with my father?" Sonmei asked. He wasn't sure why it surprised him. He had trouble picturing his mother being in love; she was just too hard and cold.

But sometimes she'd smile at him, or tuck him in at night, andon rare occasions she'd even sing a lullaby--

"More in love than I've ever seen anyone be, before or since," Shikamaru said.

"I didn't know that," Sonmei said.

Shikamaru's gaze drifted back to the ceiling. "That night was the first time Ino asked Chouji out," he mused.

"You've never told me about Chouji," Sonmei said.

And just like that, his father's strange openness was gone. "What makes you think that'll change today? Go make sure you haven't forgotten to pack anything."

Sonmei didn't try to push for any more information. The window was closed now.

* * *

Sonmei had plans for staying up that night and spying on the adults' preparations; he was even considering sneaking over to Tenten-sensei's and watching her finish his chakra sword. But he had trained with Kakashi for longer than he'd realized, and it had tired him. Before he could even finish deciding on his plans for the night, he was asleep.

When he woke up in the morning, his chakra sword was already at the side of his bed. He refused to look at it full on until he was finished with his morning routine, and he spent as much time as ever putting all his hidden weapons into place.

When he finally did stare down at the chakra sword, he noticed something else. There was a Leaf forehead protector draped across the middle of the blade.

Sonmei picked the sword up, sheathed it at his side, then, holding the hitai-ate out in his hand, stalked out of his room. His parents and Ino were near the entrance, talking with each other; only Kakashi immediately glanced over at him when he emerged. Sonmei walked up to him, thrust out the forehead protector, and waited for an explanation.

None came. "Well?" Kakashi gave him a faintly amused look. "Put it on."

"There's supposed to be some kind of test," Sonmei said.

"Ah, yeah, there's that," Kakashi said. "But you're special. Official records say you've always lagged behind your classmates."

"I haven't had classmates in years," Sonmei said.

"However," Kakashi continued blithely, "the Hokage, your former sensei, and I have studied your progress and agreed that despite your lack of intellect, you do scrape by with the skills necessary to be a genin." He smiled sweetly beneath the mask. "Put it on."

Sonmei glowered, but he knotted the headband around his neck.

There was a pause, and then Kakashi said quietly, "It looks like the hiding will be over soon, anyway."

"What?"

Instead of answering, Kakashi turned and headed over to join the other adults in conversation.

* * *

They left before noon, and quietly, to avoid any fuss.

Hanabi and Hinata met the group together. Hanabi didn't seem to be meeting her sister's gaze, but Sonmei was quickly discovering that it was hard to tell with the Hyuuga.

Sonmei didn't get a chance to say goodbye to his father, much less his sensei.

* * *

Tsunade unrolled the map on the desk in front of her. She weighted down one edge with a bowl of sake and the other with the bottle.

"Is this all the scout sent back?" Ino asked skeptically, leaning over the map.

"...how did Rain set up camp in so many places already without us noticing?" Shikamaru said softly.

"Grass, too," Ino said, pointing.

Shikamaru groaned.

"They must have had help from someone else," Tsunade said. "Either Sand directly, or the Akatsuki taking advantage of our preoccupation with Sand."

"Or the Akatsuki are working with Sand," Shikamaru said.

Tsunade slumped. "Don't say that."

Shikamaru shrugged slightly.

Ino stepped back from the desk and paced the length of the room. "When do you think they'll attack?"

"They must have found the scout," Shikamaru said, "or he would have sent back more. They'll attack as soon as possible." He tilted back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. "Tomorrow morning," he said after a moment.

Tsunade lifted the bowl of sake from the desk to drink from it. The map curled back up on itself.

"Do you think they'll try to ambush the delegation?" Ino asked suddenly.

Tsunade tensed. But Shikamaru merely said, "No, that'd be a waste of time and manpower at best and, at worst, it'd alert us of their capabilities."

Ino scowled at the wall. "I--"

At that point a dog broke down the door.

"It needed to be replaced anyway," Tsunade began, but at that point the larger dog loped back outside to make way for a white blur, which nearly flew across the room to land on the desk, panting.

Kiba crouched outside the door, talking to the larger dog. After a moment, he straightened up. "Okay, you can go home now." The dog trotted away, and Kiba strode into the room. Behind him, Shino detached himself from the shadows crawling across the wall and followed.

Kiba lifted a hand and pointed at Tsunade. "You! You _let_ Hinata go!"

"What?" Tsunade said.

There was silence for a moment. Then it was broken by an uncertain yip from Akamaru on the desk. Shino said, "You could at least have told us that she was going, Hokage-sama. We are her teammates."

Tsunade looked at Ino and Shikamaru. "Do either of you two want to tell me what's going on? Because as far as I was told, the only tagalongs on this mission were going to be Kakashi and Sonmei."

Shikamaru stared at the ceiling.

Ino glared at Shikamaru. "You didn't _tell_ her?"

He shrugged. "Not my problem."

Kiba clenched his hands into fists, and on the desk, Akamaru scratched nervously at an ear.

Shino said, "We went to Hyuuga estate this afternoon to see Hinata, and we were told that she'd left with the delegation to Sand."

Tsunade opened her mouth, then shut it. Then she picked up the bowl of sake, drained the rest of it, and refilled it from the bottle. When she was done with that, she said, "_Why_?"

"She explained herself to Sakura," Ino said, "but Sakura didn't explain to anyone else."

"Call the delegation back _now_," Kiba said. "Bring her back."

"Excuse me?" Tsunade said.

Shino sighed quietly. "We think it would be in everyone's best interests if you sent a messenger to tell the delegation to turn around and bring Hinata back."

"I doubt she'd listen," Ino said.

"Just because _you_ wouldn't listen to anything anyone told you to do, you little brat--" Kiba began.

"Like you're any better," she snapped back. "At least I wash regularly."

"There's no way all that shampoo can be good for you," Kiba insisted.

"It's all herbal and floral," she said. "Entirely natural. The _good_ kind of natural, not the kind that involves sleeping in a pile of flea-ridden mutts."

"About Hinata...?" Shino prompted before Kiba could start defending Akamaru's virtue.

Ino took a breath. "She wouldn't listen," she said, "because this means something to her."

There was silence for a moment. Then Kiba said, "And we don't?"

Ino rolled her eyes.

"I don't care," Tsunade said. "I'm not calling the delegation back. Sakura is in charge of it; if she wants to allow Hinata to come, that's her decision."

Kiba glared at her for one long moment. Then he turned around and stalked out. Akamaru made a small yip of surprise, then leapt off the desk and followed. Shino cast an apologetic look at the room in general, then walked out.

* * *

"What did you expect?" Shino asked once they were outside.

"Well...that she'd at least know what's going on," Kiba said.

"Don't lie," Shino said. "You were expecting her to wave her hand, bring Hinata back, and make everything just fine again."

"You make it sound like she's dead!" Kiba said.

Uncomfortable silence settled in between them. Kiba looked away.

Shino sighed. "We _could_ go after her. Not to bring her back," he added quickly, "but to make sure that there are more people there watching out for her."

"I don't know why she left," Kiba said.

"Neither do I," Shino said, "but whatever she's doing, I'd rather she not do it alone."

Akamaru barked in affirmation from the ground, and Kiba squatted next to him. "Huh," he said. "In that case we should leave as soon as possible."

"Alone?" Shino said.

"There's three of us," Kiba said. "That should be more than enough to take on whatever we run into."

"I have a better idea," Shino said. "The Hokage said something about that boy of Sakura's going too..."

* * *

"He's not my student anymore," Tenten said, and she moved to shut her door on them.

"What?" Kiba said, while Akamaru wiggled his way between the door and the frame, preventing Tenten from shutting it.

"Kakashi is teaching him now," she said. "You hadn't heard? Apparently he's come back from the dead to--"

"That makes no sense," Shino said quietly. "Not that he's come back from the dead. Good shinobi do that all the time."

"Not as often as they stay dead," Tenten said.

"But that he's teaching the bastard Uchiha? The most useless kid in Konoha?" Shino shook his head. "Maybe it's a favor to the parents?"

Tenten hesitated. Akamaru sat down at her feet and wagged his tail.

"You know something you're not telling us," Kiba accused her.

She gathered herself back together and stared calmly back at them. "I've always known that eventually, someone else would take over his training. I was prepared for this. Go away."

"This isn't about someone else teaching him," Shino said. "It's about that someone--who, I should add, doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to the survival, health, and sanity of his students--taking his new charge on a dangerous mission for no apparent reason--"

"He could just want to see that Sonmei is well-traveled," Tenten said. "It's just a diplomatic mission. It's not that dangerous."

"Oh, come on," Kiba said. "Even _we_ know that this is about more than diplomacy. And in the long run, we're about as useful to this village as the Uchiha bastard."

A very uncomfortable silence fell. None of them met each other's gaze.

"When it comes down to it," Tenten finally said, "we're a lot less useful than he is."

"What?" Shino said.

She shook her head. "Never mind."

"Look, if we're going to stand around discussing this," Kiba said, "can we at least do it inside? I _swear_ Akamaru doesn't have fleas." There was a pause. "Many fleas." Another pause. "As many fleas as you think he does."

"The boy isn't my responsibility any more," Tenten said, ignoring Kiba.

"You taught him for five years," Shino said. "In some ways you're probably closer to him than Sakura and Shikamaru are, aren't you?"

She lifted an eyebrow.

"I'm glad to see that they've found each other, after all they've been through," Shino said, "but sometimes it doesn't seem like they make the best parents."

"No kidding," Kiba said. "Not that I entirely blame them, given everything that kid stands for."

Tenten gave him a sharp look.

"Sorry," he said. "I've got nothing against the kid, but..."

"You two can go find your teammate alone," she said. "I have a forge to tend to."

After a moment of nervous silence, Akamaru slunk out from the doorframe. "Well," Kiba said slowly, "if the forge is more important than the kid..."

She glared at him.

"Tenten," Shino said, "he may not be your responsibility any longer, but he's still your family."

"What--" She cut herself off after one word, and the look she gave him was far more startled and vulnerable than he'd been expecting. She blinked a few times.

"Are you coming?" Shino asked.

"Maybe we should just give up," Kiba said. "We can do this by ourselves--"

"Give me a few minutes," Tenten said, "to make sure I have everything in order." She turned and vanished into her house, shutting the door behind her.

There was a moment's pause. Then Kiba said, "How the hell did you do that?"

"I don't actually know," Shino admitted.

They did not dwell on the mechanics of their success for long.


	6. Part 4: As I View the Moon

**Author's Note:** I try to avoid author's notes. People have been asking questions in reviews, though, so I finally decided to explain some things about this story. The shiny new FAQ for the story up till now can be found on the Livejournal community "ninwars" (this site is being rather uncooperative about letting me provide a simple link). If I do decide to answer any more questions, it'll happen there.

* * *

No light comes from the stars, here. Hinata isn't sure whether they're inside or outside, only that they're in a very dark and very lonely place. Strange sharp edges poke out from the walls. In the low light, she's not sure what the dark stains on them are, but she has a good guess. The geography is twisty, and despite herself, she is glad she is only here in dreams. She'd never be able to find an exit, she's sure. 

It is _cold_ here. She doesn't know how he survives. Has he been here this whole time? Whenever she comes here, she tries to get as close as she can to him. This is the first time she's really been able to get near, though.

Hinata takes off her jacket (she is wearing her old ninja clothes here, the ones she first considered giving up when her father was killed, the ones she finally did pack away when Neji died) and offers it to him. He blinks and shakes his head. "Like I'd take a girl's coat. You need it more than I do."

"No," she says, and she finds that for the first time in these dreams, she can speak. "I have other people to protect me if I need it. You're alone here."

"Not exactly," he says.

"Please, take it," she urges him.

He hesitates, and in that moment she takes a deep breath, steels herself, and pushes the coat at him. She is amazed at her own boldness. He stares at her for a moment, then shrugs into the coat. "If you catch a cold or something," he declares, "I'm not gonna listen to any excuses about how you don't need this."

She smiles tentatively at him. "Just wear it for now."

He looks away. "I didn't expect you here," he says.

She falters and looks down at the ground. "O-of course not."

"I'm not unhappy about it," he says, and that makes her smile a little once more. "Just surprised."

"We're coming," she says. "I promise."

"That's good," he says, "'cause things are going all to hell around here."

* * *

There was the faintest hint of light on the horizon when Hinata woke up. She lay in her blankets for a few moments longer, trying to recall the world of her dream. All she could remember was a dry chill that had nothing in common with the warm, dewy air she'd just woken up to feel. 

It was impossible for a Hyuuga to be truly agoraphobic. There was no hiding from the world; walls were a state of mind, not a true hindrance. All it took was a thought, and the world stretched out horizon to horizon, stripped of all obstacles.

But it was possible to keep the world at bay, or pretend that you could. Once it had taken everything from you, the idea of taking yourself from it became compelling. For most people, this would have meant serious consideration of suicide. But Hinata had always known a place that wasn't quite of this world. It was a simple matter of retreating there.

In the estate of the Hyuuga, the laws of the outside had no meaning. There was only still air and empty halls. It was safe there. You could pretend that the outside world was cowering at your doorstep rather than the other way around.

It was not until the dreams had started that Hinata had remembered that once, she'd believed there were things worth braving the world for.

She pulled open the flap of her tent and stepped outside. The dew felt strange and not entirely unwelcome on her face.

Hanabi was standing guard not far away. As Hinata emerged into the clearing where they'd set up camp, Hanabi stirred and turned to look at her questioningly.

"It's okay," Hinata said, approaching her sister. "I just woke up early."

"The dreams again?" Hanabi asked.

Hinata found herself fidgeting; she stared down at her fingers. "What time is it?"

"Quarter after five. We start moving again in a little over four hours."

"I'll take the watch for now," Hinata said. "You get some sleep."

"But--"

"I can handle it," Hinata said. "Really."

* * *

"You can't hold me like this forever," the Rain-nin said. 

"No," Shikamaru agreed. He sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor of the cell. Across from him, the captive shinobi sat in a perfect duplicate of that position, unmoving, though not by choice. "That's where my teammate comes in."

Ino smiled at the Rain-nin from beneath her mask as she walked over to him. "What's your name?" They'd already checked him for any hidden weapons he could use to kill or incapacitate them or himself. Now it was just a matter of getting the information from him.

"Yamada Tarou," he said, looking straight ahead.

Ino slammed a foot down on the junction where his ankles crossed. Bone made a faint cracking noise as it splintered. "Wrong! What's your real name?"

His face crumpled in pain. "Sutehiko Hideaki," he managed to whimper.

Ino glanced back at Shikamaru. He shrugged; their prisoner mirrored the motion. "If it's not his real name, it's close enough. There's a Sutehiko family in Hidden Rain that's produced some shinobi. Tie him up."

Ino flipped open her pack and pulled out a length of what only looked like ribbon. Kneeling beside Hideaki, she told him conversationally, "You're lucky that first attack this morning didn't actually kill any of our ninja. Tsunade-sama's in a bad enough mood as it is, but at least you stand a chance of getting back home in less than a dozen pieces this way." She pulled a knot tight around his wrists.

"In Rain," Hideaki said, "we wouldn't let you hide your shame under a mask."

She paused in tying the cords around his legs. Shikamaru had released his jutsu by now. "What?"

"If a kunoichi lets harm come to herself," he said, "she should live with the consequences. They're not just on your face, are--" He cut off with a small, strangled noise as she slid the bindings down his legs and pulled them brutally tight over his fractured ankles.

"I'll go get Shizune," she said, standing up. "The drugs should be ready now." She turned and, not looking back at the prisoner, walked from the room.

"Aren't you going to redo the bonds?" Hideaki asked Shikamaru after a moment. His voice was a thready whisper. "Make them a little more comfortable?"

Shikamaru stretched idly. "Why should I? If a shinobi insults his captor, he should live with the consequences."

* * *

"That could have gone worse," Shikamaru said. 

Tsunade rubbed her temples and started to call for Shizune to bring her more alcohol. She cut herself off at the last moment. Of course she knew that Shizune was down in the cells with Ino, coaxing information out of their drugged captive, but it was habit. She had a lot of pointless little habits like that, spread like leaves and debris over the emptiness of a hole in the ground.

"Not that it went _well_, either," Shikamaru said. "But nobody died, and damage was minimal."

"They're probably trying to get us to drop our guard," she said.

"We won't, then."

She sighed. "Let me know if you find out where the next attack is coming from. I'm going to try to get some sleep." She doubted she'd succeed, but she knew if she didn't try, Shizune would complain when she got back.

"One more thing," Shikamaru said.

She looked up.

"Three chuunin disappeared yesterday," he said. "Two of them are active shinobi--Inuzuka Kiba and Aburame Shino. The other was Tenten."

Tsunade looked back down at her desk. "I'd rather not lose them," she said.

"Unfortunately," Shikamaru said quietly, "we can't afford to look for them right now."

* * *

It was starting to rain--not a downpour that would make travel impossible, just a light drizzle that made it miserable. One of the three travelers stopped under the faint shelter of a rocky overhang. 

"We have to stop," Shino said. "Just for a few hours. We'll collapse soon if we don't rest."

Kiba pulled himself to a halt, panting. "Speak for yourself," he said, drawing his lips back to bare his teeth. "Getting tired of slogging through the rain? Hinata not worth it to you?"

"No," Shino said. "Just getting tired."

Kiba spun around and snarled at him.

"Stop picking fights with your teammate," Tenten said sharply. "We _do_ need to stop." She paused, then added, "Akamaru agrees." The dog was wedged between two clumps of weeds at the edge of the dry area, already dozing.

"They're getting further away," Kiba said. "We're losing the advantage we gained when they stopped to rest."

"And you know why we're losing it?" Shino said quietly. "Because they're better rested than us."

Tenten expected more argument from Kiba, but he merely crouched down by Akamaru and looked down at the damp ground. "Yeah," he said reluctantly. "You're right."

_They're a team,_ Tenten realized. It should have been obvious to her, but somehow she'd missed it, and now the full force of realization hit her. It hurt. She hadn't worked with a team for a long time.

"Are you all right?" Shino asked from over her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she said. "I'll take the first watch."

He shook his head. "I'll do it. Go to sleep."

"Don't be soft on me," she said, eyes narrowing.

He regarded her expressionlessly for a moment. "I have a bug that can put you to sleep with a sting," he said. "Please don't make me use it."

She stared at him, trying to figure out if he was serious. He gaver her no help in determining this. Eventually, she put her hands up in defeat. "Fine. I'll sleep. Wake me up in two hours."

"Three," he said.

She hesitated, then stifled the urge to protest. "All right. Three."

* * *

Sonmei knew the instant he entered Sand that it was much older than Leaf. It was something not so much in the air as in the stones under his feet. 

Kakashi had explained to him in his typically disinterested tone that Sand had only been a Hidden Village for as long as Leaf had, but where Leaf had been founded on its current premise, Sand had once been a royal capital. It had been like that for a very long time.

He noticed the faintest flicker of irritation shift across Kakashi's face when they began to proceed down the path to the Kazekage's palace at the center of the village. Sonmei mused on this for a little while before it occurred to him that perhaps it had something to do with Kakashi's senses. He dropped to the back of their group, quieted his footsteps, sniffed the air, and listened intently.

After a moment, he could make out a tiny skittering noise at the very edge of his hearing. It didn't stop, but it didn't have an even beat, either: it just went on, uneven but ceaseless, without any care for the pattern it failed to make. Sonmei thought that if anyone had to listen to that for long, they'd go mad. He wondered about the population of the village around him.

He quickened his pace until he was next to Kakashi. Since his new teacher lagged behind as well, it didn't take much effort. "Is that noise falling sand?" he asked quietly. Now that he'd heard the noise, he couldn't tune it out.

A beat; Kakashi slid him a thoughtful glance. "Falling sand doesn't have many tiny feet," he finally said.

Sonmei wished he hadn't said that. Now he couldn't stop thinking of dozens, maybe hundreds of little feet skittering in the empty spaces underground and inside the walls of the Sand. He didn't want to think about whatever they belonged to.

He realized they had stopped. They were not far from the palace now, and a slight woman in gauzy robes and a concealing hood stood in front of them. When her hands moved, he saw tattoos that extended beneath her sleeves.

She bowed slightly to the group in general and Hanabi, at the front of it, in particular. "The Kazekage will wait for you until you have settled into your quarters. He asks that you introduce yourselves to his assistant."

"His assistant...?" Hanabi asked.

The woman pressed a hand briefly to her chest. "Ichiru."

Hanabi frowned slightly, but nodded. She turned to look back at the others for a moment.

"Go on," Sakura murmured. They'd discussed this on the road.

Hanabi looked back at Ichiru. "The negotiations will be led by Nara Sakura, chuunin by training and civilian by choice." Sakura nodded, but did not bow. "The genin Nara Sonmei is with them to begin his studies in the subject of politics."

Sonmei bowed slightly. When he straightened up, Ichiru had turned to him. He could see just a little of her face beneath her hood. It was covered in strange swirls and patterns of makeup or tattoos. Her eyes were very pale.

Hanabi paused, then said, "Retired jounin Hatake Kakashi accompanies us to see to other aspects of Sonmei's training." There'd been fervent discussion of this part. It was Kakashi himself who eventually ruled that they should tell as much of the truth as possible about him, although he'd sounded very reluctant to do so.

"According to official records," Ichiru said, "Sharingan Kakashi is dead."

"Ah, well," Kakashi said. He had not bowed, merely tipped his head slightly. "Mistakes happen. I think we can forgive your records."

"As a gesture of good will," Hanabi continued before Ichiru could take offense at Kakashi's casual words, "Hyuuga Hinata, retired chuunin and clan head of the House Hyuuga, attends these talks with us."

Hinata dipped low. Sonmei realized that he'd been too caught up in the strange atmosphere around them to notice her nervousness. He looked away. It was a stupid reason to have been distracted, and he knew it was no excuse.

"Lastly," Hanabi said, bowing briefly herself, "Hyuuga Hanabi of the ANBU is here as a bodyguard."

There was a long pause. Sonmei suppressed the urge to hold his breath. Finally, Ichiru said, "It is acceptable. The Kazekage's servants will lead you to your rooms." Before any of them could ask questions, she made a sign with her hands and stepped back.

The skittering noise started growing, from an edge-of-the-brain irritant to a dry, unsettling noise that could not be ignored. Several stones slide aside from a nearby wall, and a number of multilegged, spidery things made of wood poured from the opening--one for each member of the delegation.

There were a series of scraping noises as the wooden creatures rearranged themselves. When they were finished, each bore a wide, flat surface on their tops. "The Kazekage's servants will take your luggage," Ichiru said, "and lead you to your rooms. See to it that the whole of the delegation meets the Kazekage's assistant outside the steps of the palace when you are ready."

She bowed again, made another seal with her hands, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

In front of them, the Kazekage's servants waited.

* * *

They were staying in a suite on the edge of the palace. Sakura was the only one who had a room to herself; Hinata and Hanabi shared one, as did Kakashi and Sonmei. Still, the rooms were more than comfortable, except for one thing. 

"The noise is...the Kazekage's servants, isn't it?" Sonmei asked Kakashi. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching as his teacher examined the room without any apparent purpose. The faint sound of skittering feet was just a little louder here, and Sonmei couldn't get it out of his head.

"Hmm," Kakashi said. Apparently that was supposed to serve as an answer.

"I think they're relaying information back to him," Sonmei said. When Kakashi did not object to his conclusion, he went on, "But that means he's spying on everyone, all the time. And he's paying _extra_ attention to spying on us now."

Kakashi straightened up from where he'd been bent over a chest pushed up against one wall. "Did you expect him not to?"

Sonmei stared at him. "What?"

"He's a ninja, just like us," Kakashi said. He added, "You should also think about what it means that he knew how many of us there were going to be, and how we should be hosted, before we got here." Then he crouched, picked up the chest, and walked over to the other side of the room with it. He shoved it up against a minute crack in the wall. Then he walked back to where he'd taken the chest from and pressed a foot down on a patch of floor that seemed no different from any other. A panel slid aside in the wall. "Give me one of your spare shoes," he said.

"But--"

Kakashi held out a hand. Sonmei sighed, pulled one of the extra shoes he'd packed from his luggage, and handed it over. Kakashi fitted it neatly in the gap in the wall; then he tapped the spot on the floor again. There was a series of grinding noises, then silence. Kakashi pulled the shoe back out, then grabbed the edge of the opening and pulled the panel back into place. "We are also ninja, just like him." He stood up again. "Start looking for other little spy tricks of his in this room that we can break."

* * *

They met at the steps of the palace almost two hours later. Ichiru was waiting for them. She'd changed into a garment as gauzy as her last one, but sleeveless, and instead of a hood, she wore a headdress with a veil. She moved no more than a statue. Sonmei found himself wondering if she, too, was one of the Kazekage's mechanical servants. But he remembered her pale eyes. They hadn't looked entirely human, but he didn't think they could be carved in wood, either. 

She waited until they had finished assembling. Then she turned, walked up the steps, and reached out for the great doors, still several feet in front of her.

Something glittered in the air. Sonmei narrowed his eyes, and what it was shimmered into focus. Slender glowing threads extended from her fingertips, then grew too wispy to see. He had the feeling that if he turned on his Sharingan, he'd be able to see more of them. He also had the feeling that if he turned on his Sharingan, he just might get the entire delegation in trouble. Reluctantly, he let it go.

In front of Ichiru, the doors slammed open, apparently untouched. Hinata made a small, startled noise, but nobody else showed any evidence of being impressed. Ichiru continued into the entrance hall, and they all followed her.

Then Sonmei stopped. Towards the back of the hall, not far from the doors leading further in, was a large statue, at least life-size. He hurried to catch up with the group, but as they neared the statue, he found himself stopping once again.

It was a young man, only a few years older than Sonmei himself. The colors of the stone were muted, but there: the red hair, the green eyes, the tawny hue of the sand cupped in his hands. The red of the character on his forehead--

"One of the more recent treasures of Sand," a voice whispered in his ear.

Sonmei spun around, reached for his most accessible kunai, and found himself brandishing an empty fist at Ichiru before he could remember that Kakashi had made him leave most of his weapons in their room. Shaking, he let his hand fall back to his side. "Do you always sneak up on your guests?"

"By the standards of the Sand," she said, "Ichiru was not sneaking. Sonmei-kun was simply not paying attention."

He glared at her. "If you don't want visitors to be distracted, you shouldn't put up statues of freaks in your front hall."

The silence that followed this was profound. Sonmei realized that even the perpetual muffled patter of wooden feet had stopped--no, had never been audible in this hall in the first place. He also realized that the rest of the group was staring at him. He couldn't be sure about Ichiru, of course, but there was something about her stance...

"Ichiru recommends," she said quietly, "that you not say such things about Godaime Kazekage where the current Kazekage can hear."

Sonmei bit down on his urge to retort bitterly and swallowed hard. He was probably supposed to apologize, but the thought made him hot with anger. Instead he said, "Is there anywhere in Sand where he can't hear?"

He had the sense that Ichiru was smiling under her veil. "Sonmei-kun is perhaps not as slow as Ichiru suspected. Please, the Kazekage awaits you all."

* * *

The original design of the archaic throne room naturally drew one's eyes to the throne itself. A subtle application of furniture and plants had changed this. Now the eye was drawn first to a life-size statue of the same make as the one in the hall. 

Once again, Sonmei found himself staring at the statue. This time, it was because he recognized it. It was the woman he'd seen in the pictures his father thought he couldn't find--the ones where Shikamaru had looked, if not happy, then at least not dead to the world. Sonmei had a feeling he knew who it was supposed to be.

Slow, deliberate footsteps finally distracted him. He looked up to see that the man who'd been in throne atop the steps a moment ago was now calmly descending the stairs to meet them. The hat of the Kazekage shadowed much of his face, but Sonmei could see swirls of makeup beneath its brim.

Ichiru turned to face them. "The Shichidaime Kazekage," she said. Then she spun around, dropped to her knees, and bowed very low. "Kankurou-sama's guests are here."

The Kazekage reached the bottom of the steps. "Thank you, Ichiru." He stepped over her and slowly walked past the members of the delegation.

It took a while. Sonmei found his attention wandering once more to the statue. There was something naggingly wrong with it, as if the sculptor had been struggling to capture a subject that needed to be in motion.

He looked up when the Kazekage finally reached him at the back of the group. "Kazekage-sama," he said.

Kankurou stared at him; Sonmei tried not to read too much into his expression. He was probably imagining the hunger and meanness there. Finally, the Kazekage said, "Do you know who that is?"

He meant the statue, and Sonmei suspected it was a rhetorical question. He answered all the same. "It's the Rokudaime Kazekage."

The Kazekage's eyes narrowed slightly in the shadows beneath his hat. "Yes. Yes, it is. She was my sister."

Sonmei felt the silence that followed tugging at him, demanding that he end it. So he said, "My father says she was beautiful."

He knew immediately that it had yet again been the wrong thing to say. Sakura, Hinata, and Hanabi stirred uneasily. Ichiru, who had not yet gotten up from the floor, stiffened. And the Kazekage--anger lit up his decorated face.

"Really," he said. He gestured slightly, and something whispered across the floor behind Sonmei.

Sonmei had a mental image of those spidery wooden servants gathering behind him. He wondered if they could attack as well as watch--or if there was another type of wooden beast made for that purpose, and that was what waited behind him now.

"What else does your father say about my sister?" Kankurou murmured.

Cold sweat gathered uncomfortably under Sonmei's shoulderblades. "He doesn't say much about her." A beat. "But I think he was in love with her."

Kankurou took a step closer to Sonmei. His fingers danced absently in the air; Sonmei heard tiny creakings and raspings behind him as the wooden creatures--puppets, that's what they were--shifted position.

"Your father," the Kazekage said, "is unwelcome here. You are lucky you and your mother are even allowed here." His voice lowered. "Your father killed my sister. Do you call that love?"

Sonmei bit down on his lip, hard. He could see his mother standing behind Kankurou, her expression drawn tight into unreadability, but he could see the tension around her eyes and in her jaw. She was scared--apparently too scared to defend her own husband.

He opened his mouth, and for a moment he wasn't sure whether it was to speak or to spit on the Kazekage. Then he saw Hinata.

She was just behind and to the side of Sakura. Her hands were clasped nervously in front of her, and she too was scared, but her fear was mingled with hope. He had never shown his sullen pride to her. She was counting on him to be able to swallow it so that they could have a chance to bring peace to the Leaf.

Bitter anger coated his throat as he spoke, but he ignored it, ignored even the way his pride stung. "I'm sorry, Kazekage-sama. I did not know."

Surprise flickered across Sakura's face. Hinata smiled a little. Kankurou merely stared at him for a moment longer, then stepped back, waving one hand as he did so. Wooden feet skittered away behind him. Whatever type the puppets had been, they were gone now.

"You may return to your rooms now," he said. "You'll be provided with a way to call my servants, who will provide you with food and drink. Sand is not responsible for your safety if you choose to wander." He turned and started back to the throne. Sonmei looked more closely at it, and he realized that none of the material of the seat itself could be seen; it was covered entirely in silks and a single cushion. He had assumed it was stone underneath, but it could as easily be wood, or even something more fragile.

"Sakura will be led back here tomorrow morning," said Kankurou. "The ANBU guard may attend the negotiations with her. No one else."

"I'd rather start tonight," Sakura said, finally speaking up. "We don't need to drag this out."

"Tomorrow," Kankurou said. "I won't have my guests deprived of their rest."

* * *

Back in the guest suite, Sonmei ignored his own room and went straight to his mother's. He found her examining the walls the way Kakashi had been doing earlier. 

Her inspection could wait. He had to talk to her. "Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded.

"Not now, Sonmei," she said.

"It's _never_ been now," he snapped. "You need to start telling me things!"

She was silent for a long moment. Then she said, "It's never been proven that your father was the one who assassinated the Rokudaime Kazekage." She stared at a sliver of a crack in the wall. "I can't say for sure whether it's true." Her expression was wooden. "Leaf did have the motivation; intelligence told us that the next in line for the job would be less openly destructive in war than her, instead preferring deception and sabotage."

"So why does the Kazekage say my father did it, if all that anyone knows is that Leaf in general had motivation?" Sonmei didn't understand why she was finally telling him this now, but he wasn't going to object.

"It is said," Sakura said softly, "that he was the only one who could have gotten close enough to her to do it."

"He did love her," Sonmei said. "So why--"

"Like I said," Sakura went on, turning a warning expression on him, "there's no proof that he did it. Only suspicion." She unhooked a scroll from the wall and moved to swap it with a different one. "Go back to Kakashi, and do your best to be quiet around here from now on, Sonmei." She sounded strained. "Don't tempt the Sand to hurt you."

Sullenly, he tucked his chin against his chest and left the room. As he trudged into his own room, he realized why she'd told him anything at all: she thought if she gave him information about Shikamaru, she could distract him from the matter of his real father. Unfortunately, she'd been right.

* * *

It had long since gotten dark out when Ino stopped by the Nara house. Shikamaru got up from the scrolls spread out on the floor and answered the door without saying anything. 

Her gaze slid to the paper chaos on the floor behind him. "Late-night studying session?"

He grunted a meager affirmative.

"That never worked when we were in the Academy," she said.

"I only ever did it then," he said, "because you made it harder for me to say no, I'd rather sleep than to actually stay up with you. Are you going to come in or not?"

She stepped inside, pulling the door shut after her. "This time," she said, "I'm going to tell you to get some sleep."

He squatted down by the scrolls again. "Can't afford it."

"And we can't afford to have you falling asleep in the middle of a fight tomorrow," she said.

"I'm under orders to stay out of battle if possible anyway," he said. "Can't let the top strategist risk his life when others are risking theirs." He slid the quickest of glances at her.

"When are you going to stop feeling guilty?" The words burst out of her in an annoyed puff of air. They'd been held back for too long.

He didn't look at her.

"It wasn't your fault," she said. "You couldn't have known..."

"It was," he said quietly, "and I should have."

"She attacked us because we were Sand's enemies," Ino said sharply. "Not out of jealousy."

Shikamaru stared down at the scrolls, but he wasn't seeing them anymore. "She told me she would never attack me. I should have been there with you and Chouji."

Ino hesitated. "You never mentioned that before..."

He laughed quietly, without humor. "Still think it's not my fault?"

She stood up abruptly. "You're an idiot." She turned to go. "Get some sleep, idiot."

When she was gone, he sat in the dim light and tried to pay attention to the reports on the scrolls, but whenever he blinked, the characters threatened to twist into the names of the dead.


	7. Interlude: I Could Bring No Offering

**Author's Note: **I am going to be attempting to take a short break from this story for a bit to work on my other projects, particularly for other fandoms. Don't worry, I _will _come back...and in the meanwhile, there may be some backstory spinoff fics in the same AU timeline as this one.

* * *

There are many ninja, in this age of war and strife, who decide to put their village and all the ties it carries behind them. They do it for many different reasons, and all of them are hunted for it. But only some of them find their way to Mugenjigoku. The ones that do either stay there or die.

When a missing-nin joins his dark village, Sasuke strips them of their name and their self. He gives them a new name and makes them his. If they come in a group, he breaks them up. He gives them power, teaches them new jutsu, shows them new ways to fight. He turns them against the world that rejected them. The only price he asks is that they cut themselves off from it entirely.

There are only two ninja he has ever been unable to sever. He gave them new names and took them away from each other, but they found their way together again. He would have killed them to set an example, but they are the best fighters he's ever had, the best scouts and spies he's ever known.

He has never found out what exactly they are to each other--lovers, siblings, both, or something stranger. He has given up on the attempt. They are his weapons now; that's all that matters.

Kazashi falls into stride with him first as he paces through the halls. "We have the report Sasuke-sama asked for."

Sasuke says nothing until he senses Tsue's presence at his side. He is brilliant, he is the best there is, and still her stealth confounds him at times. Finally he says, "Give me a summary."

"It doesn't look good," Tsue says. "They brought two Hyuuga with them; one is the genius Hanabi, and the other is the clan head."

"Hinata is not a threat," Sasuke says. "And she can be used to neutralize Hanabi if necessary." For some reason, something stirs uneasily in him at the thought of harming the elder Hyuuga woman. He pushes it away.

"That is not the worst of it," Kazashi says gravely. "The report of Hatake Kakashi's reappearance is true, and he is with them."

Sasuke glares ahead of him, but says nothing.

"So is the boy," Tsue says.

"Dammit," Sasuke says, his breath hissing out between his teeth, "it's not time yet. He isn't even close to ready, no matter what Kakashi does with him."

"Ready for what?" Tsue asks. She always asks about the boy and his purpose.

"Tsue!" And Kazashi is always alarmed at her boldness.

As for Sasuke, he never answers. Except now, he decides that he can afford to tell them the truth on the surface. "Ready to be my heir."

His two followers both stop in their tracks, but only for a moment. Then they rush to catch up with him.

"So that's why you can't release it while they're there," Tsue says. "You can't endanger the boy." She pauses. "But you didn't know he'd be there, so why--"

"You will not question my motives," Sasuke says sharply. Of course that's why he doesn't want to release it yet; for the boy's sake...

He tries not to imagine _her_ rent by its claws, and he hates himself for caring.

_You can't be your brother. You're not that heartless. Stop trying to be!_

He suppresses the sudden bright burst of reprimand as he and his two weapons come to the stairs. "Leave me," he says. "I need to speak with it."

Sasuke descends into the darkness, and he tries not to think. There is always too much time to think, going down these stairs.

* * *

In the antechamber, Sasuke takes a deep breath before sliding up the metal plate on the door, and he hates himself for being so weak.

(For being so lost. There were people, once, who tried to guide him back, but he pushed them away--)

(No. There was never anyone who tried to help him. He has always been this alone. He must not allow himself to need others. Only the weak need other people.)

There is no reaction from inside the holding cell, which is odd, because normally its inhabitant is quick to demand release.

"I'm not going to open the door to see if you're still in there," Sasuke says. "I know you are."

For a long moment, there is no reply to this. Then comes a bitter hiss of disappointment. _Let me out!_

"Not yet," he says.

It snarls--one of the few truly physical sounds he's heard it make. _I'll rend Sand first as an appetizer...the place that owned the monster I was made from. But then Leaf...Leaf..._

"That's what I made you for," Sasuke says. He knows it's true. "Take down Leaf. Destroy everything the boy holds dear. Make him strong."

_Like your brother made you._

"You will not mention him to me," Sasuke says, swallowing hard.

For a moment, there is silence. When the voice comes again, it is sly and smug. _You're afraid of me. What I can do, what I am._

Sasuke is silent.

_You are right to be afraid. You might have made me, but I am stronger than--_

Something inside him snaps. It happens sometimes--very rarely. He never mentions it to his underlings, to anybody. But when it happens, for a moment, he is someone different.

"Shut up! You think you're the coolest monster ever, but you're just some stupid little freak squirted out by one of the snake asshole's forbidden jutsu!"

It is silent, but from his distant place inside himself, Sasuke can feel its shock.

"I've known--I've _lived_ with monsters that'd make you piss yourself, or whatever it is you miserable little bastards do when you're scared shitless. Shut up and do as you're told or I'll end the jutsu now!"

_You can't._ The monster is shaken, but it takes solace in one fact it does know. _At this point, there's only one way--_

The force that controls Sasuke's body wrenches a kunai out of hiding and lifts it to his throat. "Yeah. One way, you little shit. Want to try it?"

Sasuke knows this is a bluff. He is not afraid. For the first time in years, for just a moment, he is not afraid.

Then it is over. The monster retreats sullenly to the back of its cell, hissing in frustration to itself. The fear starts to come back.

_You'll let me out soon,_ it says, but it's begging now.

"I'll let you out when I need you," and now Sasuke is speaking for himself again.

He slides the metal panel back over the grille, checks to make sure the door is still solidly bolted, and turns to ascend the stairs once more.


	8. Part 5: If Your Name Is True

**Author's Note:** For the first time, I've been proven wrong as I go along in "Spiral Out." So, yeah, turns out Akamaru grew up a bit in canon, while he's still relatively small in this story. My apologies for that.

* * *

Sonmei had never had any particular trouble sleeping. He'd lie down and his thoughts would chase themselves in circles around his head for a few minutes, then lie down and let him be, and he'd go to his dreams. He had a bit of a soft spot for dreams--for all their craziness, they had a deeper, saner logic than reality.  
But here in the Sand, he couldn't sleep.

He'd be just about ready to drift off, and the muted skittering noises at the edge of his hearing would jar him into a nervous sweat. He shoved his head under the pillows and tried to sleep that way, but cutting off his senses like that made him too edgy to sleep.

Finally, Sonmei sat up, glanced across the room to be sure that Kakashi was still asleep, and quietly got dressed. He checked all his weapons, then stood up to go and padded silently out of the room, into the anteroom of their chambers. He stepped outside and was about to head off into the village proper when the faintest nagging feeling made him turn and look at the doorway behind him.

Kakashi stood in it, his distinctive silhouette outlined in silver starlight against the darkness. He said nothing, only watched.

"So you are awake," Sonmei said. There was no response, so he continued, "I'm going to find out what's up with this place."

"That's quite a task," Kakashi said softly. "Weren't you warned not to go wandering?"

"No," Sonmei said. "The Kazekage didn't say anything like that. He just said that if we _did_ choose to wander, Sand isn't responsible for our safety."

Kakashi chuckled softly. "We're responsible for our own safety, then." Without another word, he started down the path to the village. Sonmei followed.

* * *

When Shikamaru finally caught up with Tsunade after the second wave of attacks subsided, she looked more disheveled than he'd ever seen her. Ino had told him that the Hokage herself had been forced to fight, but it didn't really _hit_ him until he actually saw her.

Her clothes were a little torn; it was remarkably easy to notice that. Her primary genjutsu remained in force--more or less, anyway; she looked more thirty-something than twenty-something at the moment--but the other discreet little jutsu she used on her appearance to keep herself looking like an impeccable leader instead of a slovenly drunkard were beginning to fall apart. It was an unsettling sight.

Shikamaru had not realized she used a jutsu to keep her...assets from moving excessively until she'd stopped using it. He was suddenly deeply relieved that he hadn't had much of a sex drive in a long time.

"How many dead?" he asked.

"Four so far," she said shortly. "I didn't hear about how bad it had gotten until two chuunin and a jounin were already dead, and another chuunin went down before I could get to the front lines. Shizune!" She lifted her sake bowl from her desk, then paused. "She's tending to the wounded. Never mind..."

Shikamaru opened a cabinet and pulled out a jug of sake. "Here."

"You're good to me," she said, taking the jug and pouring it. "Not like your wife. She actually _hides_ the alcohol from me sometimes. At least she doesn't whine like Shizune..."

There was a high note of stress and strain beneath the Hokage's mindless complaints. Shikamaru let her talk for a little while before saying, "Are we ready for the next attack?"

"We'll just have to find out, won't we," Tsunade said. She stared down at her sake bowl. "Some of the jounin are talking about bringing the genin into the defense for the next attack."

"I'll go see if we can do something else," Shikamaru said. He turned to go.

"Yeah," the Hokage told her sake, "you do that."

* * *

When Hinata awoke, she could not remember what she had been dreaming about, but she knew it was important. Without stopping to think or worry or fear, she quietly pulled her clothes on. Then she picked up the sheathed form of the chakra sword from next to her bed.

Thirteen years ago, the owner of that sword had promised her that when he came back from the mission to retrieve his teammate, he'd help her learn how to use a chakra sword herself--no matter how much her father disapproved. She didn't think he'd ever realized how much that meant to her.

But he hadn't come back, and all that was left was the sword. Hinata had kept it safe since Sakura gave it to her thirteen years ago. Now it was time to do more.

She took the sword and stood up to go.

* * *

"And this," Kakashi murmured as he landed soundlessly on the stone floor, "would be the Kazekage's personal library."

Sonmei landed behind him, releasing the genjutsu a moment later. The illusion dropped away from them; they were no longer identical to the hundreds of puppets scurrying through the halls. "Is this where he keeps secret documents, then?"

"That would make sense," Kakashi said. He paused, then clarified, "So no."

"What?"

Kakashi shook his head and started forward. "Scrolls," he said, looking around him at the papers that lay recently opened on tables and desks. "On kinjutsu and demons, mostly. Interesting..."

Sonmei did not bother asking how Kakashi could tell what the scrolls were all about just by glancing at them. He'd begun to learn how hard getting answers from his new teacher was. Instead, he said, "The scroll on the center table."

"What about it?"

"It looks important," Sonmei said. He walked over and stared down at the scroll. A part of his mind patiently waited for Kakashi to make some remark to the effect of "that probably means it isn't"--but he didn't. Instead, he regarded the scroll in silent concern.

"'Kurokagami,'" Sonmei read. "It's some sort of summoning scroll. Yes?"

"I hope not," Kakashi said mildly. He traced some of the more obscure characters with one finger.

Sonmei frowned at him for a moment, then looked back down and admitted, "I'm having trouble figuring out _what_ it summons."

Kakashi was silent for a moment. When he finally spoke, his tone was very even. "It doesn't. It's not _exactly_ about summoning."

Sonmei felt his patience fraying. "Well, what is it about? It _looks_ like a summoning scroll, but it seems like...you already have to have something, some sort of demon, to go to the next step? I'm not sure how that works..."

Kakashi gazed off into the distance, his expression as peaceful as ever. "Hmmm. You could say that it summons a demon much the same way sex summons babies."

"It _what_?"

"Ah! I'm sorry." Kakashi looked genuinely abashed. "Your parents haven't explained to you...?"

"Forget it," Sonmei snapped. "Just tell me what the jutsu does."

Kakashi's gaze slid back down to the scroll. "It's a copy, not the original; there are some omissions...probably deliberate...but still. The Summoning of the Dark Mirror."

Sonmei waited.

"It takes an existing demon," Kakashi said quietly, calmly, "and makes it into a new one composed of the darkest corners of your personality. Everything you love, it hates. Everything you want to protect, it seeks to destroy. It--" He shook his head slightly and looked away.

"Why does Sand have this thing in the first place?" Sonmei demanded.

"Keep your voice down," Kakashi said. He glanced around. "We're not going to find what we're looking for in here. It's too easy for the public to get to."

"Too easy for...I almost lost count of all the twists and turns we had to follow the puppets through!" Sonmei paused. "What _are_ we looking for?"

Kakashi did not answer. Instead, he looked up from the scroll and pulled his forehead protector straight, revealing his left eye. Not missing a beat, Sonmei followed suit and activated his Sharingan. Then he paused.

Lines of chakra crawled across the walls. Some started at the door they'd come in through; others emerged from minute cracks in the wall and vanished amidst others.

Sonmei stared and waited for Kakashi to explain, When only silence met his confusion, he said, "What are they?"

"Lines of chakra," Kakashi said helpfully.

"Yes, but--" Sonmei gritted his teeth, cutting off his own question. He was silent for a long moment. Then he said, "They're the tracks the puppets follow, aren't they?"

Kakashi smiled slightly. "Ah...close enough." He knelt by a convergence of chakra tracks and tapped carefully on the wall. A section of it slid aside. "Eventually, they have to pass through even the most secret rooms of the Kazekage's palace. That's the way Kankurou works. Let's go."

* * *

It wasn't that the rain stopped, but rather that they moved past it. In the poorly-defined zone between Fire Country's forests and Wind Country's wide stretches of desert, Tenten, Kiba, and Shino finally left the dull drizzle behind as night fell around them. It did not take them long to quicken their pace accordingly.

Tenten later realized that they'd just been far too grateful to get out of the damp. Of course they hadn't gotten _too_ careless--they were still ninja, even if they were only chuunin, and carelessness meant death. But they'd let their senses slide just enough for the enemy to take advantage of it.

They'd just emerged from dark obscurity of a thin strip of scrubby trees when Shino stopped, one hand held up in warning. He was very still; the deeper shadows from the trees moved more than he did as the wind shifted the sparse leaves about in the cool night. "Something's wrong."

On either side of him, Tenten and Kiba drew to a halt. After a moment, Akamaru yipped, and Kiba said, "Akamaru and I don't smell anything."

Shino frowned. "I'm not sure what it is, but..."

Tenten said nothing. Instead, she flicked out a kunai and tossed it at the ground in front of them. It sank slightly in the sand, and for a moment, nothing more happened. Then the sand quivered and shook, and the kunai vanished beneath it. "Quicksand," she said, and she started to add, "You don't usually find it in deserts, though--"

The back of her neck prickled suddenly, and she stopped. A split-second later, the sand in front of them reared up into a razor-edged wave. She dodged back just in time, followed instantly by Kiba and Shino. After that, everything started happening very fast. But then, combat was always that way.

Kiba leapt to his feet first as the sand subsided, his nostrils flared wide and an animal light in his eyes. He lifted one hand and pointed. "Over there. Two of them!"

Neji wouldn't have done it like that. He'd have simply activated the Byakugan and turned to nod in the right direction, and Tenten and Lee would have been after the hidden foe in a second.

Shino didn't leap up immediately; instead, he stayed low to the ground, arrowing silently in the direction Kiba had pointed. As he moved, a dark cloud began gathering around him, crawling over his arms and legs without ever impeding his movements.

Lee wouldn't have done it that way. He'd have burst out of hiding in an explosion of energy, falling upon the enemy before they could begin to prepare themselves for his assault.

Kiba and Shino weren't Neji and Lee. It was the most ridiculously obvious observation that Tenten could think of, and yet for a moment, it paralyzed her.

Shino paused for just a moment. "Tenten," he said.

She thought of Sonmei, remembered his back turned on her as he walked away for the last time. "I've got your back," she said, and she reached for her weapons.

* * *

Hinata had been aware, in a distant, intellectual fashion, that the desert got very cold at night. But it had been so long since she'd walked alone through the world outside her home that she hadn't thought of the cold as a real thing. It had been just an idea, like the idea of walls, and just as insignificant to her.

She dropped to her knees in the shadow of a rock overhang and pressed herself up against the cliff wall. The stone against her back was almost as cold as the air around her, but not quite. There was still some of the day's warmth lingering deep down inside it.

She closed her eyes and hugged herself. "Even if I can get there--wherever that is--what will I be able to do?" she asked the empty night around her.

The old chakra sword felt strangely warm against her side. Then, suddenly, _he_ was kneeling next to her. She started, jerking out of her huddled position, and realized that she was blushing like a teenage girl. "Naruto-kun--"

"I'm not _really_ here," he said. "I think. I don't--really know how it works, but I knew you were upset and I wished I could do something about it." He squinted at their surroundings. "I can't...really see where you are. It's all kind of fuzzy. Except for you."

"I'm in the desert," she said quietly.

He frowned. "Alone? Weren't there others with you?"

"I left them back in Sand," she said. "They would have stopped me if I'd told them I was going."

He bit his lip, concern suddenly lighting up his eyes. For just a moment, he looked heartbreakingly unsure--and then he grinned that grin of his that made her warm inside. "Not a problem! They'll follow you, and it'll work out great. Just--when you get there, don't go inside until they show up, all right?"

"When I get where?"

"I'm...not really sure," he admitted. He was silent for just a moment, and then he spoke up again. "Hinata?"

"Naruto-kun?"

"Why are you doing this?"

That brought her up short. She opened her mouth to tell him, to explain how she felt, but nothing came out. Finally, she said, "I'm doing it for you _and_ for me." It wasn't really a lie, and it was certainly the closest she could get to the truth.

But it didn't stop her from shivering in the night air.

He gave her a hard look, and then he shrugged out of her jacket. "Here," he said. "Take it back. You need it now."

"I--"

"No arguments," he said. He held out the jacket and smiled. For the first time, she could see him silhouetted against the dark sky, and he didn't seem entirely real. He glimmered at the edges. But when he dropped the jacket into her lap, it felt as solid as the sand beneath her.

Then he was gone. Still, she felt a little warmer than before.

Hinata stood up, pulled on her jacket, and started heading back in the direction that was calling her.

* * *

The chakra tracks wound through the passageways of the Kazekage's palace like cracks spidering out in an ancient wall. Kakashi and Sonmei followed them in their tortured paths until they resolved into a single knot at the center of a bare room.

They stood in the doorway with Sonmei's genjutsu covering them. Just behind the central tangle of chakra tracks, Ichiru knelt as if praying. She was still as stone or wood. No veil hid her face, and there was something inhuman about her features. Individually, each aspect of her face was merely slightly odd--the empty pallor of her eyes, the smoothness of her lips, the unnaturally even tone of her skin. Taken all together, though, she gave the impression of having been sculpted like a clay vessel or carved like a wooden bowl.

The back of Sonmei's neck prickled uncomfortably. He couldn't quite look away from her.

Kakashi lifted one hand slightly in a placating gesture: stay back. Then he stepped forward and started silently towards Ichiru.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, although she did not look directly at either of them, she said, "Ichiru would be a very poor bodyguard indeed for Kankurou-sama if a prideful genin's genjutsu could fool her." She rose to her feet and took a step forward so that she stood atop the knot of chakra.

Sonmei felt an angry flush creeping up to his face, but Kakashi remained expressionless as he dropped the illusion from around him. He did not give Ichiru time to react; he simply reached out and caught her by the shoulders.

"You won't get in without Ichiru's help," she chided.

"I'm willing to risk that," Kakashi said mildly. He hadn't yet covered his Sharingan again, and now he reached out to catch hold of her face.

But she turned her head at the last moment and looked straight at Sonmei. Her gaze did not drop in intensity. "Sonmei-kun was right," she said.

He dropped his genjutsu and glowered in disgust. "What's the _point_ of this jutsu if everyone can see through--" He paused. "Right?"

"About your father."

He took a quick step forward. "You know about my father?"

"Your father," she said, as if correcting him. "Not the man who sired you."

"Oh," he said.

"You were right. He really _was_ in love with the Rokudaime Kazekage."

Sonmei went very still.

"She's stalling," Kakashi murmured. But Sonmei thought he could hear the faintest hint of uncertainty in Kakashi's normally cool voice.

"Tell me," Sonmei said.

"Rokudaime was never the same," Ichiru murmured, "after Gaara-sama died. Ichiru was only seven when it happened, but Kankurou-sama tells her--his sister was a caring person, once. She was violent--always violent--but she believed in peace between the villages. And she cared for her little brothers...so much." She paused. "And she loved your father, Sonmei-kun. Ichiru was just a child, but after Gaara-sama's death, she started noticing these things..."

Sonmei did not move. He barely breathed. Even Kakashi had fallen silent and still, his hands slid away from Ichiru and back to his sides.

"Something broke in Rokudaime when she arrived at where the Akatsuki had taken her brother and found your mother and her teammate standing over his dead body."

"There was nothing we could do," Kakashi said. "And nothing she could have done. He was already dead when we got there."

"Ichiru knows. Perhaps Rokudaime even knew. But she couldn't accept it. Couldn't believe that the one she'd pledged her life to protecting could be taken from her so easily. So she gave up all she'd believed in and turned against Leaf for failing her family. She waged war on you, but she might as well have been waging war on herself."

"People _died_ in that war," Sonmei said, lifting his chin. "My father's teammate--"

"The shadow-wielder and Kankurou-sama were all she had left," Ichiru went on. "And she loved them desperately because of that. But she was broken, and they couldn't fix that. Ichiru could see Kankurou-sama also breaking day by day as he watched his sister fall."

"Then they sent my father," Sonmei said.

"He passed by outside Kankurou-sama's rooms when he made his way to Rokudaime that night," she said. "Ichiru saw him, and she followed him, but she did not stop him."

Kakashi gave her a curious look. Sonmei said, "Why--" He cut off as he realized, abruptly, that sometime while Ichiru had been speaking, his Sharingan had switched off, and he was looking at her now with only his normal eyes.

She ignored them. "It was easy for the shadow-wielder. He didn't even have to touch her, and there was no blood on his hands when he came out from her rooms. But Ichiru was still there, and he saw her." Her empty eyes were distant. "He stopped, he shook his head...he said, 'I'm not going to kill a child to protect myself now. Too troublesome,' but he was crying, you understand."

Sonmei only stared.

"But Ichiru said, 'There was nothing left of her. It was an act of mercy.' And he said, 'Not for me.' And Ichiru let him go." She looked steadily at Sonmei. "Ichiru thought that without Rokudaime dragging him down, Kankurou-sama could begin to heal. But Ichiru was wrong. Kankurou-sama is still lost and spinning around the memory of her. Now he is bringing the village down with him the way Rokudaime brought him down with her. Do you understand, Sonmei-kun?"

"I'm not sure," he admitted.

"Understand this," she said. "Kankurou-sama is not lost yet, not the way Rokudaime was. Ichiru will not believe it. But she cannot save him herself." She slowly folded back to her knees. "She leaves it up to Sonmei-kun."

"What am _I_ supposed to do?" he demanded.

"Ichiru does not know," she said. "But Kankurou-sama says Sonmei-kun reminds him, just a little, of a boy he knew once who could change people." She set her hands down on the place where the knot of chakra was, though it was invisible now to Sonmei's ordinary eyes. After a moment, something shifted and clicked. A panel in the floor slid aside, revealing a winding stairway down into the sandy rock. "Go," she said. "Ichiru has severed the connections that call Kankurou-sama's puppets to him. You can subdue him now. But one thing."

"Yes?" Kakashi regarded her warily. He had not yet replaced his forehead protector over his left eye.

She did not stand; she merely looked steadily up at both of them. "If you harm him--if you leave more than a scratch on him--I will take control of his army of puppets, and I will take them out of Sand, and I will run Leaf into the ground. I will leave no one alive."

"Why do you _care_ about him so much?" Sonmei asked her.

"Go," she said.

They went. The panel slid closed again over their heads.

* * *

Beneath Kiba's foot, the ribs of the surviving Sand jounin snapped--but slowly. The enemy shinobi had plenty of time to blanch with pain first. He did his best to cover it up by spitting blood at Tenten, who crouched above him. She ducked slightly to the side and went back to regarding their captive with a patient expression.

"Let's try this again," she said. "Why did you attack us?"

He snarled. "We were two jounin! Three chuunin can't have defeated us!"

"I suggest," Shino said, "that you check your current situation before saying something like that."

"One more try," Tenten said. "Why did you attack us?"

The Sand-nin's eyes narrowed. "You were the enemy, approaching our country. What else should we do?"

"What of the peace talks?" Tenten said.

"Do I look like I care about peace talks?" their captive snapped. "We were told to guard the borders and kill anyone trying to cross either way. That's all I know--" He stopped, cutting off abruptly as he realized just how much the pain and frustration had prompted him to say.

"That'll do," Shino said. "Kiba, his legs are already broken?"

"Yeah," Kiba said. "Think me and Akamaru should savage him a bit before we go?"

"That's probably not necessary," Tenten said, standing up. "Let's go." It was still night, and the desert had gotten quite chilly remarkably fast. "We have some ground to cover before dawn."

* * *

The Kazekage's inner sanctum was a stark room with walls of stone. Plastered over them were assortments of maps--not just of Wind Country but of Fire Country and others as well. Kakashi paused to regard those maps. Sonmei ignored him and strode forward.

For a moment, Kankurou, at a desk at the head of the room, did nothing. Then he twisted around and gestured. Nothing happened; worry and irritation mingled on his painted face.

Then he snapped into action, lunging forward. Sonmei hit the ground hard, and he felt ribs break as the breath rushed out of him. Squeezing his eyes shut against the pain, he rolled over and pulled himself to his feet--

--only to see Kankurou struggling without much dignity in Kakashi's calm grasp. The Kazekage bared his teeth at Sonmei; Kakashi merely twisted his captive's arms a little behind his back.

"How badly are you hurt?" Kakashi asked.

Sonmei stood up slowly, wincing. "Few ribs broken," he said.

"See what's on his desk," Kakashi said.

Sonmei walked over to the desk, moving gingerly, and started going through the papers on it.

Kankurou hissed. "I see you don't take the peace talks very seriously."

Kakashi made a noncommittal noise, the kind usually reserved for old relatives in the midst of a boring tale.

Sonmei held up a paper. "Neither do you," he said.

Kakashi regarded him with interest. "Go on."

"These are letters from Rain, Grass, and--" He hesitated. "Stone. Stone aren't our enemy now, but...these letters are talking as if they were. They--oh."

"Oh?" Kakashi said.

Sonmei was silent for a moment as he picked through the letters. Then he said, "Sand was talking to our enemies, Kakashi-san. Arranging things with them. Preparing for some kind of ultimate strike. There's some references in here to something I don't quite understand...someone else was involved? But there was no plan for peace."

"The Akatsuki," Kakashi said quietly.

Kankurou looked down at the floor and said nothing. Kakashi did something to his hands, and he flinched and then snarled. "It doesn't matter. We won't be able to do it so elegantly now, but it'll happen all the same. Either Leaf gives over military control of Fire Country to us here in these negotiations, or we send Stone in to overrun them. Rain and Grass are already attacking. They must be worn down by now."

"How did you gain control over the other Hidden Villages?" Kakashi asked quietly.

Kankurou was silent for a moment. Then he said, "The Akatsuki."

"Mmm," Kakashi said.

The adults were talking over him again. Sonmei ground all his anger into a single word: "_Why_?"

Kankurou slid him an annoyed glance. "You'd have to ask the lord of the Akatsuki."

"Not _them_," Sonmei snapped. "You. You've sold out Sand to this war because the Akatsuki told you to! You've forgotten what you're supposed to be!"

"How would you know anything about what I'm supposed to be, little boy?" Kankurou asked, his voice soft.

"I wouldn't," Sonmei said. "I wouldn't know anything about what other people are supposed to be. I was _supposed_ to be anything myself. But I know that if I had the chance to serve my people the way you're meant to serve yours, I wouldn't be letting some men in bad cloaks push me around!"

"They didn't give me much of a choice," Kankurou said. "What was I supposed to do, fight them?"

"Yes! What _else_ do you do when someone threatens the ones you're meant to protect?" Sonmei shook his head. "Why are you even fighting this war anymore?"

Kankurou hesitated. He looked away. "It was what my sister wanted."

"Was she even your sister anymore at that point?"

Kankurou glared. "How much did Ichiru tell you?"

Sonmei took a step forward, hands clenching into fists around the papers he held. "Don't even bring Ichiru into this! Do you have any _idea_ what she's done for you, what she still does?"

"This isn't your business," Kankurou said. But after a moment, he looked down.

Before he could say anything more, part of the wall exploded inwards in a blast of rubble. Sakura stood framed in the hole this left behind, her chakra sword in one hand, the other formed into a gloved fist. "Nice night, isn't it?"

Hanabi soundlessly stepped up behind her. Her expression was cold and intent.

Kakashi did not release Kankurou, but he did look startled. "Sakura?"

"I tracked you by the signature of your chakra sword, Kakashi," she said. "There's quite a bit no one but me knows about those things." She glanced over at Sonmei and added, "I tried to track you first, but you haven't even used yours yet. If you don't know how, I'll teach you on the way."

"On the way?" Sonmei echoed.

Sakura nodded at Hanabi, who stepped forward. She said, "Hinata disappeared sometime earlier tonight. I managed to follow her trail for a little while before losing it..." She strode forward to one of the maps and indicated a short path on it. "She's going that way."

"Oh," Kankurou said.

"Oh?" Sakura repeated.

"It's interesting," he said, "but that's the direction of the Akatsuki hideout. It's several hours' journey out from Sand. I can provide you with directions if you want."

Sakura's eyes narrowed, but Kakashi said, "We'll take them." He glanced at Sakura and said, "Ah, I may need to explain some things as we go."

"Really," she said. She paused and gave Sonmei a hard look. "Sit down," she ordered him.

"What?"

Without waiting for him to comply, she strode over and pushed him into the seat at the desk. Then she laid her hands on his chest, and after a moment, he felt the pain recede. "I'm not going to ask you how you broke your ribs," she said, "_for now_."

"He's coming with us," Kakashi said.

Sakura looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. "There really isn't any other choice," she murmured.

"Why is Hinata going there, Sakura?" Kakashi said.

Sakura shook his head. "There isn't time, now. We need to get going."

"All of us?" Hanabi asked.

Sakura looked at her. There was a pause.

"...no," Hanabi said. "I'm not staying here while my sister is in danger."

"Hanabi," Sakura said, "she doesn't usually do things on her own like this. It's important to her. And--" She hesitated. "It's personal, for us. It's about my teammates. Please."

Hanabi stared back at her for a long moment. Then she said, "Keep her safe. There'll be no reason for me to go back to Leaf, no reason for me to care about it at all, if she--if she isn't there."

"Is that so?" Kakashi said.

Hanabi nodded.

"We'll care for her," Sakura said.

"Is anyone going to explain this to me?" Sonmei asked.

"If you're good," Sakura said. "Get ready to go."  



	9. Part 6: Who Is Still Alive

First of all, I'm sorry for the long wait, but now the story is moving again and it shouldn't be nearly as long before the next chapter comes out.

Second, I'll note here that for those of you following this story who haven't read it, there is now a prequel to "Spiral Out." It's called "Their World," and it can be found with the rest of my fanfiction.

Since now requires disclaimers, here it is: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, not me.

* * *

The mouth of the cave was ordinary. Inconspicuous. Hinata wouldn't even have noticed it if not for the tug she felt coming from the chakra sword she clung to.

It was buried in the rocks amidst a small copse--she'd gotten close enough to the Wind-River border that the desert itself was starting to break up into grassland and thin woods, so the trees were not particularly out of place. Somehow, though, as she approached the darkness of the cave, she felt colder than she had out in the desert.

She focused on the ground before her, felt her eyes turn on--

--and a network of winding tunnels stretched out before her, like a spiderweb ready to ensnare her.

She crept back into the concealing shadows of the trees around her. She didn't need to let anyone know she was here just yet.

_I'll let it,_ she thought. _I'll let it take me in and swallow me up. He's in there. He and I--_we _will find our way out again._

Hinata pulled her jacket tight around her, and she tried not to shiver. After all, the sun was almost on the horizon.

* * *

Shizune didn't exactly open the door to Tsunade's office. It was more like she nudged it open by leaning on it. When it did open, she staggered inside more than she walked.

There was a body in her arms--one of the teenage genin, a boy Shikamaru recognized as having attempted the chuunin exam only once. He was dead, and messily so. His throat had been torn open.

Shizune didn't say anything. She just sat down in one of the chairs by the wall and set the body down in front of her. Her eyes were slightly glassy.

Ino stepped inside. "The body count is up to twenty-two and rising," she said. "Ten were genin."

"That's not that bad," Shikamaru said. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against Tsunade's desk. "I've seen much worse body counts."

"_And rising_," Ino repeated.

Shikamaru shrugged. He found a kind of relief in managing to be so detached. It was like grinding your teeth when they ached, or scratching at a healing wound.

"I was busy poisoning two Grass-nin who'd come at me from the side," Shizune said quietly. "I almost forgot that the boy was behind me." She nodded at the dead genin. "When I finished and turned around again, he was choking on his blood."

"He was choking because his trachea was gone," Shikamaru said, looking at the corpse.

"Shikamaru," Tsunade said, a warning in her voice.

"What?" he asked, tilted his head back so that he could look up in her direction.

Then he glanced back at Shizune, and he saw that there were tears on her face, and she was shaking very slightly.

Shikamaru stood up. "Look," he said, "it's not like it really matters anymore. I've been going over the reports, and there's something about the pattern of attacks--they're leaving an opening for another force to come in soon, in a matter of hours at most. It's going to be big."

"You can't comfort people for shit," Ino said.

Shikamaru shrugged. "What I mean is, it doesn't matter who dies now, because most of us will be dead when the next wave comes anyway. Happy?"

Ino gave him a sharp look. Then she strode forward and slapped him, hard.

"Ow," he said, and then he realized that there was surprise in his voice.

"I should have _punched_ you," she said.

"Enough," Tsunade said. She pushed herself up from her chair. "Ino, Shikamaru, stay here and get the last line of defense ready. Shizune, handle healing." She hesitated for a moment. Then she picked up the Hokage hat from where it dangled on the edge of her desk, and she pushed it into Shikamaru's hands. "Hold onto this until I get back."

"What?" he said.

"Godaime!" Ino said.

Shizune stood up abruptly, her eyes wide. "Tsunade-sama--"

Tsunade paused in front of Shizune. Then she smiled tiredly. "It's all right. Don't worry too much."

Before she walked out the door, she picked up the dead boy, and she carried him out with her into the light of dawn.

* * *

"I'm sure Shikamaru has figured it out by now," Sakura said when Kakashi had finished explaining Sand's betrayal to her. "But there's only so much they can do back there. And even if we take down the entire Akatsuki, it'll take too long for the word to get out."

"Didn't you say something about explaining things to me?" Sonmei asked.

"Sand has some form of swift communication," Kakashi said.

"But first we have to get back to Sand," Sakura said.

"Hello?" Sonmei said.

"Maybe I should teach you patience," Kakashi commented to him, quite casually.

"I've been patient my entire life," Sonmei said.

"Then you should be better at it," said Kakashi.

Sonmei glared at him, then turned back to look at Sakura. "If you don't think you can deal with the Akatsuki and get word back to Sand in time to call off the attacks on Leaf, why are you so determined to go anyway?"

Sakura stopped for a moment. She gave him a long look. "It's personal," she finally said.

"That's not a good enough explanation," Sonmei snapped.

She paused. Her eyes slipped halfway closed.

"Sakura?" Kakashi said.

"The man in charge of the place we're going," she said quietly, "was once a boy I knew very well. He was my teammate. So was another boy I knew very well."

"They're dead now," Kakashi said, his tone somehow even flatter than usual. "They both are, or might as well be."

Sakura twisted around to stare at him, her eyes wide open once more. "Do you really believe that?"

He looked at her in silence. Sonmei waited for him to make some casual, cryptic remark, or to smile knowingly beneath his mask. But he did neither, and after a moment he closed his eye and turned his head away.

"I didn't think so," Sakura said. She smiled, and it was _fierce_. "Has Kakashi shown you _tamashii no ken_ yet, Sonmei?"

"Not yet," Sonmei said. "It's all been about how to use the Sharingan, or exercises in chakra control and how to combine that with swordfighting. No practical application just yet," and he shot Kakashi an annoyed look, but his teacher was still looking away from the two of them.

"Turn your Sharingan on," Sakura said as she drew her chakra sword out from its sheath at her side.

Sonmei obeyed.

"Now watch carefully." Sakura held the strange sword out in front of her. She narrowed her eyes for a moment. "_Tamashii no ken_."

Blue-green light glittered on the edges of the sword's twin blades. Then, in an instant, it jumped across the central gap and bound both blades together. What had been a cumbersome, oddly separated design was suddenly a single deadly weapon.

"It's a weapon," Sakura said quietly, "but with part of my soul attached to it. Over time, you...bond with the sword. Maybe even leave something of yourself in it." She lowered the sword. "Now you try."

Sonmei slowly unsheathed his own sword and held it out in front of him. He visualized the jutsu as he'd seen it performed, imagined the chakra swirling through his own body as it had his mother's--

And behind him, Kakashi stirred. "You can't possibly think you can save Sasuke now."

Sonmei let the sword fall back to his side. But when he turned to look at his teacher, Kakashi was staring at Sakura.

"I can't think anything else," Sakura said softly.

"There are no roads back from the places he's been," Kakashi said.

"Then I'll make one," she said.

Kakashi regarded her blankly.

"All this time," she said, "I've been the one who's needed protecting. It was all right when I was twelve and just a silly little girl. Then it didn't _cost_ anything. But when I was fifteen, sixteen, when I should have been good enough--I wasn't. And it started to hurt other people. When I fought Sasori of the Red Sand, I should have been able to hold my own. Instead, Chiyo had to expend herself healing me. When the time came, she had nothing left to heal Gaara with. When Naruto and I fought to bring Sasuke back, I should have been able to fight with Naruto, not behind him. But I couldn't, and you--"

She drew in a sharp breath. There was something _burning_ at the back of her eyes.

"_You_ had to save me, because I wasn't good enough to stand my ground with my own teammates. And they were lost because of it. I will _not_ accept that."

It looked almost as if Kakashi's mouth had dropped open in shock behind his mask. "Sakura..."

Sakura looked away from him. "Sonmei," she said. "Try the jutsu."

Sonmei nodded and lifted his chakra sword once more. For a moment, he felt muted by the confession he'd just heard. Then he rolled the silence into a ball on his tongue and swallowed it. He gathered up his chakra, and he focused.

"_Tamashii no ken_," he said.

The glow from the sword cast a circle of pale blue light before him.

* * *

Tenten felt scorched inside and out by the time she got through the sandstorm.

It had been small and curiously placed--right where someone coming from the direction of Leaf would approach Sand.

"I don't think that was a coincidence," came Shino's voice from by her right shoulder, cool and thoughtful.

Tenten jolted slightly. It wasn't an odd thing for him to say; no doubt the three of them had all come to the conclusion, while struggling through the sandstorm, that it was a deliberate roadblock. But she wasn't used to people voicing her own thoughts.

The last time that had happened had been when her teammates were still alive.

"No," she agreed. She started to open her eyes, but there was still too much sand in the air and on her face, and she hurriedly shut them again in the face of the sudden stinging.

"That was a pretty stupid defense," Kiba said from the left of her. His tone was smug, predatory. "They must be weaker than we think if the best they can throw at us is a pair of fumbling jounin and some sand."

"We can't get cocky now," Shino warned in a low voice.

"We also can't stop now," Tenten said. "Shino. Kiba." She took another step forward. Then--she wasn't even sure why--she held out a hand to her right, reaching until she caught hold of Shino's fingers. She reached out to her left, and Kiba grabbed her hand.

Tenten opened her eyes, and this time it didn't hurt so much. "Let's go."

The gates of the Hidden Sand were just ahead.

* * *

"She's not coming back, you know," Kankurou said. He was sprawled on his throne, tension hiding in the falsity of his very careful relaxation.

Hanabi looked up from where she stood at the bottom of the stairs. Her fingers tensed around the hilt of the sword at her waist. "That's what you think."

"That's what I _know_," Kankurou corrected her. His voice was smug.

"Kankurou-sama," Ichiru said in a low voice.

"What you _know_?" Hanabi said. She took a step up. "You don't know anything about Hinata. You weren't the one that had to watch her retreat further and further into herself over the years, who--" She caught her breath, falling silent for a moment. Then she said, "She needs to do this. For her own sake."

Kankurou smiled. "Are you telling me this, or yourself?" He stepped off the throne and slowly descended the steps. "Ichiru," he said, "go check on the defenses. See what the situation is with Leaf."

She did not move.

"Leave us," he said, more sharply.

She fixed him with a long gaze, then turned and left the throne room, heading down the hall towards the palace doors.

Kankurou returned his attention to Hanabi. "Do you really trust those three with your sister?"

She lifted her head to meet his gaze. "Yes."

"You shouldn't," he said.

Her eyes narrowed.

"Fourteen years ago," he said, "Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto, along with an elder of our village, set out from here to rescue my brother Gaara, then the Kazekage, from the Akatsuki. Temari and I were ordered to stay here. We stayed. We trusted them to bring our brother home."

Hanabi said nothing as Kankurou approached her.

"Eventually, we managed to go after them. But it was too late. They couldn't save him, and our elder died in the attempt. Oh, the Akatsuki was devastated from the battles that ensued, but Gaara was still dead."

"Gaara was captured," Hanabi said. "Hinata goes of her own will."

"_What_ will?" Kankurou sneered. "I saw her. She's a pathetic shell of a ninja. She was probably lured out by a trap that a brain-damaged child could have seen through."

Hanabi stiffened.

"I wouldn't be surprised," he continued, "if she were dead already. I'm sure it's just as well--the Hyuuga will be better off with a clan head who has _some_ idea of what they're doing. Who isn't pining after dead family every night, probably wishing they were still alive just so that they could take over her duties. That's all she ever wanted her family for, I'm sure. Being there to prop her up when she was too pathetic to stand on her--"

Hanabi lunged.

A fire went on in Kankurou's eyes, and he moved to block. Behind him, the clatter of the puppets intensified, and several of the little ones clicked and twisted into new, deadly combinations. He gestured, and the older, bigger puppet leaning on the side of the throne rose to his side.

"Attacking the Kazekage right in his throne room," he hissed. "That's a serious offense. Better finish what you've started or I'll finish _you_."

Hanabi moved to attack again--then paused. "Finish what I--"

There was silence for a moment.

"You want me to do this," she said slowly. "You want me to--what? Kill you?"

A flicker of irritation passed over his painted face. "Don't back out now," he said, and several puppets skittered closer to her. "I won't let you."

Hanabi stared at him, but she didn't have much time before the puppets were upon her.

That was when the doors of the throne room flung open.

"What?" Kankurou said.

Ichiru stood in the doorway. Behind her were Kiba, Tenten, and Shino, poised and ready to attack.

"Forgive your servant for this, Kankurou-sama," Ichiru said. Then she turned to the ninja behind her. "Help the Hyuuga subdue him," she said. "Now."

The three of them looked at each other, then obeyed.

* * *

Kakashi was the first to reach the small wood, but he stopped when he got there, pausing in thought.

When he did, Sonmei took the opportunity to race ahead, pushing past the underbrush and turning to take in his surroudings. He caught sight of the cave mouth quickly enough, but he didn't relax until he saw Hinata, pressed up against a tree. "Hinata-sama," he said. "You're all right." Relief uncoiled inside him.

She smiled at him. Something relaxed slightly in the set of her shoulders, and she stood up a little straighter. "I'm just fine. I'm glad you are too, Sonmei-kun."

"The sword," Sakura said. "You brought it with you."

Hinata looked down at the chakra sword in her hands. "I think it's more like...it brought me."

"No," Kakashi said. "You chose to come here." He gave her a long look. "The sword just showed you the way, didn't it?"

Hinata hesitated, then nodded. "That's how it was. And--" She stopped, her expression going distant. Sonmei straightened a little, waiting for her to say something more. But after a moment, she came back to herself, and all she said was, "This is where I need to go."

"Why?" Sonmei blurted out. He felt himself go hot at the embarrassment of asking Hinata something like that, something that somehow seemed so _personal_ even though it was a perfectly reasonable question.

But Hinata only looked at him. For a moment, she was quiet. Then she said, "Because that's where the story--where _my_ story takes me. Or maybe," and her voice went soft, "where I take the story."

"In that case," Sakura said, "this is where the story ends." She stared hard at the entrance to the cave. "We're going to finish it, here and now."

Kakashi laughed suddenly. It was a strange, soft sound. "I don't think so. All proper stories end with a wedding or a funeral."

Sakura's mouth pulled up into a smirk. "You need to expand your taste in books, Kakashi." She started towards the cave. "Let's go."

* * *

For the first minute or so of walking, the cave was very dark. In the last of the fading light from the surface, Sonmei could see Kakashi's hands forming seals, and then a pale green light sprang up around them.

"That should hold us until we get to somewhere with some light," Kakashi said as they continued downwards.

"How do you know this whole place isn't this dark?" Sonmei asked.

It was hard to tell, especially in the strange light, but Kakashi seemed to be smiling underneath his mask. "Sasuke can't do _everything_ in the dark. He only wishes he could."

"Sasuke," Sonmei repeated, trying the name out. "Isn't he the man from the Sound encampment?"

Sakura stopped abruptly, then strode up ahead to meet the two of them, leaving Hinata in the rear. She gave Sonmei a sharp look. "You met him?" There was something in her eyes he'd never seen before--except maybe earlier, out in the desert, when she'd spoken of Sasuke and her other teammate.

"He said that it wasn't time for me to come to him," Sonmei said. He tried not to sound _too_ smug as he added, "I guess I'm going to prove him wrong."

"He was right," Kakashi said. "I should have taken more time to train you. But there wasn't time." His chin dipped a little; his gaze fell. "I--"

"The enemy," Hinata said suddenly. "They're coming."

Niches on the tunnel sides suddenly flared with fire, and the illusion of rock dropped away from a section of the wall. Dark-clad ninja poured of the opening, too fast to be counted. The sudden fierce firelight glinted off of strange blades and calculating eyes.

Before Sonmei could do anything, they'd cut Hinata off from the rest of them. "Hinata-sama!" he yelled. He started back, reaching for his chakra sword. Now he'd get the chance to use it.

But Sakura grabbed his arm. "No," she said as she drew her own chakra sword. She didn't turn it on yet, but she used to blade to parry a series of shuriken. "They're a distraction. We have to keep going--_tamashii no ken_!" The chakra sword flared to life, and she lunged at an enemy ninja.

"But--"

"I'll hold them," Kakashi said, "and make sure that Hinata's all right."

Behind them, there was a flurry of motion, and Sonmei thought he could make out several of their opponents falling. Then Hinata's voice broke through. "The path splits up ahead! Take the--" She paused, and there was the sound of more blows being exchanged. She was breathless when she continued. "The right-hand tunnel."

By then Kakashi had turned on his own chakra sword, and Sakura was pulling Sonmei away down the tunnel.

Two, then three ninja fell to Kakashi's sword, and then he hesitated. "Sakura," he said.

She stopped, frowning at him. "What?"

"I didn't save you back then because you were weak," he said.

She was suddenly very still.

"Even then," he said, "you had grown so much. You weren't weak. I saved you because you were the only one I _could_ save."

"Kakashi--" Her eyes were wide.

"Sasuke's waiting," he said, and he threw himself into the fight.

Sonmei was already making his way down the path.

* * *

They didn't stop even when they came to the split that Hinata had mentioned; they just hurried on down the right-hand path.

"Do you actually have any idea where we're going?" Sonmei asked eventually.

"I know exactly where we're going," Sakura said. Her chakra sword was still on, still glowing in the dim firelight. "We're going to see Sasuke."

"And what are we going to do when we get there?" Sonmei said. "Ask him nicely to stop being mean to Leaf?"

"Asking nicely doesn't work with Sasuke," Sakura said.

Sonmei noticed the shadows shifting a fraction of a second too late. The instant he realized something was wrong, he willed his Sharingan active, but by then, the shadows had resolved into a pale-haired, dark-eyed woman with a long knife in one hand. She'd come out of nowhere, and now she had that knife lifted to Sakura's throat and her free hand gripped around Sakura's wrist, immobilizing the hand that held her chakra sword.

"Nothing works with Sasuke-sama," she said, smiling. "At least, nothing _you_ can do. You'll be dead by the time he gets here for the boy."

A dark-haired, pale-eyed man emerged from behind the woman, but his attention was on Sonmei. "Tsue will deal with the woman," he said as he approached. "You will wait here with me." He tipped his head and stared solemnly down at Sonmei. "Ah, I see. You have the Sharingan. You _are_ his son."

"Kazashi," said the woman, "shut up. We don't need to talk to them." She shifted, moving to slice the knife down Sakura's throat.

Blood welled up there, and Tsue grinned too widely. That was when Sakura punched her in the stomach.

Tsue gagged and retched, and while she was doubled over, Sakura took a step back and then lashed out with her chakra sword. Tsue stumbled back just in time.

"You bitch," Tsue hissed. "Sasuke-sama didn't tell me you could hit like that." She swung the knife up again.

Sakura blocked it with her sword. "There are lots of things Sasuke pretends he doesn't know about me," she said sweetly.

Kazashi moved, then. Even with his Sharingan on, Sonmei couldn't anticipate the blow. He could see a thousand complex factors behind it, and he could realize (with a sinking feeling) what the chakra gathering in Kazashi's fingers was going to do to him, but he couldn't avoid it.

The hand struck his upper chest, and Sonmei felt like he'd exploded. The bones of his ribs fractured, cracks running rampant through them. Everything _broke_. He crumpled to his knees, trying not to sob in pain. It didn't work. He was screaming and there were tears on his face.

Sakura hesitated at the sound, and she turned away from Tsue. "Sonmei!"

Tsue lunged. Her knife poised just beneath Sakura's chin, she pinned her to the wall. Kazashi moved perfectly in tandem with her. He rushed at Sakura, his fist going out--

--it was the same move he'd just used on Sonmei--

--and connecting with Sakura's chakra sword.

The blade shattered. Little fragments of steel flew everywhere. A few of them lodged in Sonmei's arm. The stinging there was a brief but welcome distraction from the pain in his ribs.

"That was a good try," Kazashi said, almost kindly. "But here in Mugenjigoku, we _break_ things."

"Oh," Sakura said. There was a dazed look in her eyes. "Really?" She let the hand that had held her sword fall limply to her side, but she didn't let go of the empty hilt.

"It's what we do," Tsue said.

"So I see," Sakura said softly. Her fingers shifted around the hilt of the broken sword.

Where the blade had been until a few seconds ago, blue-green light lanced out. It followed the paths that steel had once formed until there was a new blade composed of pure chakra.

Before either Tsue or Kazashi could react, she swung the sword up. It slid into Tsue's chest, and a glint of its tip emerged from her back.

"You can break things here," Sakura screamed, "_but you don't break my son!_"

Tsue stared at her. The knife slid out of her fingers, and she fell. All the cool reason abandoned Kazashi's expression, and he flung himself out to catch her.

Sakura lashed out with the chakra sword and sliced him in half.

She stood there for a second as the blood pooled around her feet and spread around her. Then, as the glow faded from her sword, she stepped over the bodies and made her way to Sonmei.

"It's all right," she said as she knelt beside him. Her hands rested on his chest, and warmth spread from them. The pain dwindled. "I'm going to make it better."

The relief was so profound that for a moment, Sonmei couldn't say anything. Then he lifted his gaze and looked down the corridor. "Mother," he said. "Behind you."

She paused, and then slowly she stood up. Sonmei could tell by the look in her eyes that she knew what she was going to see when she turned.

Sonmei got to his feet and took a few quick steps forward as Sasuke stopped mere feet away from them. He couldn't resist looking back at Sakura.

Her eyes were luminous with intensity, and her expression was indescribable.

For a moment, Sasuke met her gaze. But it was too much, and he quickly looked away, down at the bodies at his feet. "Tsue and Kazashi underestimated you," he said calmly. "That's too bad."

"Only because you told them to," Sakura said.

Irritation flashed through his eyes. "Why would I do that?"

Sakura only smiled indulgently at him. Then she gestured for Sonmei to come closer. "Sonmei, this is--"

"--my father," he said. "I know."

"It's a bit sooner than I'd hoped," Sasuke said. "Some of my plans will have to be rearranged." He started for Sonmei. "But I'll do the best I--"

"No," Sakura said. She stepped between Sasuke and Sonmei. "You'd hurt him, and I wouldn't be able to forgive you for that."

Sasuke laughed brokenly. "You can forgive me now?"

"It doesn't matter whether I can forgive you," she said, "because I still love you."

For the first time, Sasuke actually looked angry. His eyes swirled into red and black as he activated the Sharingan. Then he reached out with one hand and grabbed Sakura by the throat. Blood trickled from the shallow cut there, flowing over the edge of his palm. "Then I'll have to get rid--" His voice faltered. "I'll have to deal with you." He lifted his other hand, and there was a kunai in it.

She looked startled, but not precisely afraid.

Sasuke stopped. He looked frustrated. The kunai vanished back up his sleeve, and he released his hold on Sakura's neck. Before she could do anything, though, he'd formed handseals, and she arched back as if pulled taught by invisible ropes. Her hands snapped behind her back as if they'd been tied there, and she fell to her knees.

"Binding jutsu are very useful," Sasuke observed as he walked past Sakura to Sonmei. "I have another jutsu that's very useful, too. Let me show you, Sonmei."

"_Tamashii no--_" Sonmei began as he swung his chakra sword up. But the breath fled from him as Sasuke casually knocked him back, and then Sasuke grabbed his wrist and _snapped_ it. The sword fell to the ground.

Sasuke put one hand on Sonmei's shoulder. With the other, he tilted up Sonmei's chin and forced him to meet his eyes. They'd changed--it was like looking up into a kaleidoscope of knives and blood instead of pretty crystals.

"_Tsukiyomi_," Sasuke said.

Sonmei tried to yell out, but the darkness only fell into him and gagged him as it dragged him down.  



End file.
